The Holy City. Patrick McCabe - Hardcover

Patrick McCabe was born in Clones, Co Monaghan, Ireland, in 1955. His novels include Carn; The Dead School; The Butcher Boy, winner of the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Literature Prize, shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize and made into a highly acclaimed film directed by Neil Jordan; Breakfast On Pluto, also shortlisted for the Booker Prize; and Winterwood, winner of the Irish Novel of the Year 2007. He lives in Clones.

Humphrey Bower is a card-carrying genius in my book, but here he may be trying to do the undoable, presenting a first-person "unreliable narrator" so obviously insane that he has no moral tension or suspense to work with. Released after many years in a mental institution, Chris McCool mentally wanders back to the days of his youth and promise, if any, in Ireland's swinging '60s and forward to his sensationally self-deluding and intensely creepy present, in which he happily drones at his bored and appalled listener, you. Bower can do any accent and even sings in several distinct characters' registers, but his very skill is self-defeating here; the more real McCool becomes, the more you want to get away from him. It's a fine performance but not a likable experience. B.G. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine