Yeats Is Dead!

May 14, 2001
Sponsored by Amnesty International to help raise funds for its work, this round-robin mystery, coauthored by 15 esteemed Irish writers, including Frank McCourt, Roddy Doyle and Conor McPherson, is more a literary curiosity than a compelling read. After one of two policemen who are moonlighting as ruffians accidentally shoots a man they've been questioning, Nestor and Roberts find themselves on the body-strewn trail of the mysterious symbol Y8S=+ (no rewards for puzzling it out), a miraculous skin cream and a previously unknown last novel by James Joyce. Nods to Ulysses
abound. A copy of the book figures prominently in the plot, while Nestor and Roberts work for a mobster named Mrs. Bloom. Though some lilting Irish prose and notably bawdy passages will appeal, the novel proceeds by fits and starts to a preordained conclusion. There are some keen observations and an understated wit that verges on the epigrammatic ("Her blue eyes glittered with the absence of mental health"). But the eccentricity grows mechanical and a little bit of the blarney goes a long way; consequently the braggadocio becomes forced. ("He hated Bewley's, hated its claustrophobic mahogany interior, its slow black-clad waitresses with their big culchie faces. And yet he always seemed to end up here whenever the black dog of depression was pissing down his back.") Thus, while this mulligan stew of a mystery is sometimes tasty, it's hardly nit picking to point out that the porridge contains more than a few lumps. (June 16)Forecast:With a 75,000-copy first printing set for Bloomsday, plus some big-name contributors, this should attract plenty of initial attention, but may be too quirky for lasting appeal.

February 1, 2001
The authors who each contributed a chapter to this romp include Roddy Doyle, Frank McCourt, and Marian Keyes, and their protagonists are two decent sorts who beat up guys on the side to earn some extra dough. Eventually, murder intervenes.

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2001
Think of a Dublin pub. Fifteen Irish writers, including Frank McCourt, Conor McPherson, and Anthony Cronin, line the bar. And they launch into a tale, a mystery it is; Roddy Doyle starts things off with "I think he was dead before I shot him," and each storyteller takes it upon him/herself to pick up the story where the previous speaker left it. "Yeats Is Dead!" is a progressive feast in which some of Ireland's most famous contemporary writers top each other, chapter by chapter, in a mystery centering on the suspicious death of a man who may have harbored an unpublished manuscript by James Joyce. The result is not a mystery at all, but an exercise in embellishment, a send-up of crooks and grifters and cops, a bravura display of Irish wit and word power that hurtles to a miraculous wrapping up. Great fun and a great showcase for contemporary Irish writers. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)