Yeats Is Dead!: A Mystery by 15 Irish Writers - Hardcover

O'Connor, Joseph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375412972 ISBN 13: 9780375412974

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2001

Synopsis

A series of bizarre murders, a missing manuscript by James Joyce, an investigating detective named Andrew Andrews, and a sheaf of papers bearing a cryptic clue are a few of the ingredients in a mystery written by fifteen acclaimed Irish writers.

About this title

Review

Yeats is Dead! doesn't seem like a book so much as a protracted pub crawl in the company of 15 hyper-articulate pottymouths. Roddy Doyle, Frank McCourt, Anthony Cronin and a dozen of their lesser-known compatiots have written a literary mystery that isn't terribly literary and doesn't really hang together as a mystery. It is, however, a showcase for riffing by some very clever writers. The novel commences with a chapter from Doyle, wherein a couple of cops on the take raid the trailer of a down-and-outer. They've been instructed to do this by the all-knowing underworld crime boss Mrs Bloom (much given to crying "O yes" in proper Joycean fashion). Unfortunately, the two policemen accidentally kill the resident hobo and in doing so set off a whirlwind of brutality, inner-city intrigue and unlikely romance.

Each chapter is written by a different writer and each writer seems eager to outdo the last by killing off as many characters as possible. This can be good, bloody fun. It can also lead to some creaky exposition along the lines of this passage from Cronin's chapter: "The guard that got shot. What did he think he was up to? And what was his connection, if any, with the Tommy Reynolds murder?" More successful are the writers who altogether give up the ghost of creating a cohesive mystery and instead wallow around in literary references and ridiculously purple prose. Here novelist Joseph O'Connor tries his hand at an action scene: "Gravity and Mrs Roberts had entered into conflict and, as devotees of the late Sir Isaac will confirm, out of such a negotiation may emerge one victor." Not exactly Tom Clancy and a good thing too.

The Irish keep turning out these collaborative efforts, the most recent being Finbar's Hotel and Ladies Night at Finbar's Hotel. (By the way, £1 from the sale of this particular round-robin will go to Amnesty International.) In any case, the format can be tough on the writer who must bundle it all up in the final chapter. Here the task falls to honorary Irishman Frank McCourt and let it be said he does his salty, saucy best. --Claire Dederer, Amazon.com

Review

"A great romp of a read." -John Banville

"Hilarious. . . . Filled with sharp vignettes amid the bedlam." -Washington Post

"If you've ever wondered, as I have, just how much fun fifteen Irishmen can have while sober, Yeats Is Dead! provides the answer." -Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls

Edition details

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375412972
• ISBN 13: 9780375412974
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 259
• Editor: Doyle Roddy, O'Connor Joseph