Product Description

Malachy Dudgeon has escaped the misery and madness of his childhood home and landed a job in the most famous school in Dublin. The headmaster, Raphael Bell, has overcome his own tragedies to forge a model career, but when Malachy Dudgeon and Raphael Bell meet, they become inextricably engaged in a macabre relationship which proves fatal to their fortunes and their sanity.

‘McCabe can make you howl at the darkest antics . . . He never sets a foot – or syllable – wrong. His novel is death on a laugh-support machine. Stupendous.’ Scotland on Sunday

‘Raphael, the great headmaster, is a marvellous creation . . . McCabe has a charm as a storyteller which is all his own’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Exhilarating. Reading the distilled gouts of consciousness which pour from the minds of these characters is like being trapped on a big dipper with articulate maniacs . . . Horribly funny’ The Times

‘An appallingly funny story . . . horribly memorable’ Times Literary Supplement

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #178345 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Sad and touching
A quietly gripping book that draws you in gently with some fine writing, very black humour and the wonder of falling in love. As the two main character's lives begin to fall apart it's like watching a train crash, something awful is going to happen but you can't look away. A great study of disintegrating personalities and what happens when life just doesn't quite work out as you expected.

Even more engrossing than I expected.
Having read McCabe's chilling book, The Butcher Boy, I was looking forward to a repeat of the damaged but sympathetic characters and the delicious horror one finds there. This novel, however, boasts a broader scope and more subtle characterization than The Butcher Boy. More ambitious, but just as seductive, it boasts two main characters of different generations and personalities, colliding with nightmarish results. Because the characters are so normal, even happy, at the beginning, and their deterioration seems so accidental and avoidable, the sense of sadness and loss one feels at the end is even more intense.McCabe creates wonderful, understandable characters facing conflicts not unlike those many of us face, and voices so real we can recognize even their inflections. For a teacher, the situations he conjures may be nightmarish--rude and surly students, impatient and demanding parents, classes for which more preparation was essential, compromises made because there was simply Not Enough Time, along with pedagogical conflicts between strict standards and flexible, creative learning. All of these issues come into play here, and they will keep you thinking long after you finish the book. Mary Whipple

Dark, depressing and strangely humorous.
A fantastic book, cleverly written. The development of the two characters is gripping, and the consequence of their meeting is grotesque, unimaginable, yet believable. Do NOT read this book if you are either a teacher, or you love "Chirpy, Chirpy Cheep Cheep"! If you enjoyed "The Butcher Boy", then I am sure that you will enjoy this book too.