Puckoon - Softcover

Spike Milligan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140111344 ISBN 13: 9780140111347

Publisher: Penguin, 1988

Synopsis

Puckoon is Spike Milligan's classic slapstick novel, reissued for the first time since it was published in 1963.

'Pops with the erratic brilliance of a careless match in a box of fireworks' Daily Mail

In 1924 the Boundary Commission is tasked with creating the new official division between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Through incompetence, dereliction of duty and sheer perversity, the border ends up running through the middle of the small town of Puckoon.

Houses are divided from outhouses, husbands separated from wives, bars are cut off from their patrons, churches sundered from graveyards. And in the middle of it all is poor Dan Milligan, our feckless protagonist, who is taunted and manipulated by everyone (including the sadistic author) to try and make some sense of this mess . . .

'Bursts at the seams with superb comic characters involved in unbelievably likely troubles on the Irish border' Observer

'Our first comic philosopher' Eddie Izzard

Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.

About this title

Review

Bursts at the seams with superb comic characters involved in unbelievably likely troubles on the Irish border (Observer)

Pops with the erratic brilliance of a careless match in a box of fireworks (Daily Mail)

Our first comic philosopher (Eddie Izzard)

Milligan is the Great God to all of us (John Cleese)

About the Author

The legendary and iconic figure, Spike Milligan was born at Ahmednagar in India in 1918. He received his first education in a tent in the Hyderabad Sindh desert and graduated from there, through a series of Roman Catholic schools in India and England, to the Lewisham Polytechnic. He then plunged into the world of Show Business, seduced by his first stage appearance, at the age of eight, in the nativity play of his Poona convent school. He began his career as a band musician, but became famous as a humorous scriptwriter and actor in both films and broadcasting. He was the creator, principal writer and performer of the infamous Goon Show. Spike received an honorary CBE in 1992 and Knighthood in 2000. He died in 2002.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140111344
• ISBN 13: 9780140111347
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160