Killoyle, An Irish Farce
The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad: A Mostly Irish Farce
For pure reading pleasure, Roger Boylan's first novel Killoyle is a treat to be savored. A delightful satire of life in an Irish village, Killoyle follows the lives of the town's inhabitants, touched by drink, religion, and more than a touch of blarney.
Alternating between despair and hilarity, sophistication and slapstick, Boylan's unpredictable, spontaneous flashes of merriment keep the reader entertained throughout. Killoyle wildly celebrates the great Irish tradition of laughter amid despair.
Boylan rises to the challenge of doing something original with a novel, in the spirit of the great Irish novelists James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, and Samuel Beckett. This wacky tale is fleshed out with acerbic, opinionated, hilarious footnotes addressed directly to the reader, that rudely comment upon the characters and numerous other subjects. The reader is treated to a virtuoso of language by the author who appears to write for the pure pleasure of doing so.
Roger Boylan's roots are in Ireland and the New York area. After attending the University of Ulster and the University of Edinburgh, he worked as a translator, computer technician, teacher, and book editor. His stories and articles have appeared in various journals, including The Literary Review, The Recorder, and The Austin American-Statesman, and he is a regular contributor to Boston Review's New Fiction Forum.
His second novel The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad continues the uproarious saga of the hapless inhabitants of Killoyle, through the frenetic week of the Pint-Pulling Olympiad.
"With a wink and a nudge, Boylan's pyrotechnic prose brings to life Ireland at its manic extremes, proving the author a dazzling and distinctive talent in American fiction". As richly captivating as its predecessor, The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad is witty and erudite and comes complete with the deftly crafted clever details and footnotes.
If you have been searching for a book that is both hilarious and literary, you will definitely find it here.
"Boylan's narrative resembles James Joyce at his comically prolix best, with a similar appetite for vernacular nuance and pop allusion."
"A grand Irish entertainment: Roger Boylan explores life's absurdities with incomparably extravagant wordplay."
"This is a virtuoso performance, filled with truly funny turns of phrase and event."
"Killoyle, An Irish Farce is a wonderful book following in [the] Anglo-Irish literary tradition. And like its Swiftian and Tristram Shandy forefathers, its characters all appear to be running low on luck, but the book is written with such humor and sympathy that their lives are a joy to participate in . . . Buy this book and read it."
