A Book to Read in Krakow

Posted By Daisy

I went to Krakow last year on a city break. I loved the city, but couldn't sleep for a week after visiting the horrors at Auschwitz. When we got home, I donated the white painted vintage suitcase under my coffee table to a friend, and got rid of a picture of silver-hued trees in my bedroom, as it reminded me too much of the woods behind Birkenhau. I wrote this for a travel feature published last year.

A YOUNG man with a prosthetic leg and a walking cane drinks beer with his girlfriend in a café on the main square. Two tiny ladies study a city map on a pavement hoarding before taking their seats and ordering espressos and some water. A homeless woman in a raincoat does a moonwalk shuffle past the first layer of café chairs. She stops beside a girl in a Day-Glo green visor who swiftly extracts some coins from her purse.

Pigeons scatter as a long-haired man holding a ‘Free Walking Tour’ placard ambles about followed by a group of tourists. People point upwards outside St Mary’s Basilica, listening to the hourly trumpet call coming from the steeple. In the Cloth Hall, permanent stalls peddle carved chess sets, fridge magnets and wooden children’s toys. Horse-drawn carriages clip-clop through the square, following the Royal route towards the Wawel castle.

Mention a city-break in Krakow and people remember three things. The Square, Auschwitz and the Salt Mines.

www.wikepedia.org

Rows of travel agencies on Grodzka Street pedal day trips and before I have time to think, a day-trip to Auschwitz is booked with on-bus educational video and picnic lunch included. Outside the camp, the sign, ‘Work Sets You Free’ glints in the daytime sun as crowds of teenage school tours and middle-aged couples surge forward at the ticket barrier. A nearby shop sells flower garlands and candles in stained glass holders, which visitors lay at the Death Wall inside, or the iron hanging hooks situated on the side of one of the streets in side. The tour guide is solemn and rarely smiles during the three-hour tour.

We visit the site of Auschwitz 1 first where two-storey red bricked houses are laid out in neat rows surrounded by barbed-wire fences. Now a series of museums, this area once served as an administrative centre, medical experimentation centre and torture centre. The first exhibit shows huge photographs of prisoners arriving in Auschwitz, smiling and unaware of their fate. Deeper into the tour are the rooms full of the prisoners’ possessions taken by the Nazis and stored in huge warehouses which were known as ‘Canada, the Land of the Plenty.’ Everything was taken, from hair which was made into fabric, to gold-teeth which were extracted from the bodies by fellow inmates in a room next to the gas chambers.

The rooms of possessions are next. In one there are thousands of gravestone-like battered suitcases with names and addresses beautifully painted on them, some bearing the handwritten label ‘child’. Next is the Room of Hair where hundreds of chopped-off plaits sit casually atop mounds of hair. It may as well be bodies. Other rooms contain huge piles of shoes, baby clothes, prosthetic limbs, shaving brushes and eyeglasses. Walls of black-and-white photographs of men and women in striped pyjamas surround the prisoners living quarters. There is a flower atop one of these photographs, perhaps left by a relative.

We take a bus to the extermination camp at Birkenhau, ten minutes away. Its red-bricked train station is instantly recognisable. An original wooden train carriage still stands at the platform where exhausted people were divided into those who could work and those who could not. I had previously seen a photo on-line of a young dwarf-sized man sitting on a chair on this platform, looking bewildered at the crowds around him, totally unaware that his stature sealed his fate. Once chosen, women, children and the elderly and sick walked 1 ½ kilometres up the platform to the gas chambers, reassured by the soldiers that they would be having dinner after a shower. The four gas chambers are gone now, destroyed by the fleeing Germans, and never rebuilt, out of respect to the 8000 people per day who were murdered there. But pieces of wall remain in the rubble and plaques from every nation adorn a walkway.

After Auschwitz, I have no interest in visiting Oskar Schindler’s factory, or the Galicia Jewish Museum, or the Pharmacy Museum which details the plight of the Jewish ghetto victims. It’s simply too much suffering to bear. The Square of the Ghetto victims has a permanent installation of 70 large wooden chairs to remember the Jewish people who were moved into the walled ghetto after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany.

www.magickrakow.com

We head to the beautiful Jewish quarter of Kazimiertz. At the Ariel café (frequented by Stephen Spielberg and his crew during the filming of Schindler’s List), there is a large family having a lively dinner served by elderly waiters. I drink hot chocolate at a polished tiled table filled with gold grout and study the paintings of Jewish elders lining the walls. ‘Once Upon A Time in Kazimiertz’ is an interesting. Consisting of a row of original shops amalgamated into one restaurant, the shop fronts still bear the Jewish names of the carpenter, the grocer, the tailor and the general store. The menu offers chopped chicken livers with eggs in truffle sauce, veal jelly with quail egg and green peas.

At the nearby Remuh Synagogue and cemetery, there is a wall of plaques dedicated to the victims of the holocaust. One is donated by Henry and Lola Tenenbaum, New York. Later, I discover that Krakovian expatriate, Lola, watched her mother being transported to Auschwitz on Mother’s Day, 1944. Another family plaque remembers the 88 members of the Ferber family who were killed during the Holocaust.

The Museum of Ethnography in the former Kazimiertz town hall, provides a welcome break from the all-pervasive sadness and I have an interesting ramble through Polish life past and present, with costumes, farming implements, childrens’ toys and a recreation of a rural classroom all on display.

My hotel recommends a trip to the ski-resort of  Zacopane and the Tatras National Park, a two-hour drive from Krakow. Lionel Richie and Roxette play on the radio as we zoom up the motorway, spying bleak countryside, and unattractive bungalows with dormer windows and smoking chimneys and piles of chopped firewood stacked against lean-tos.

Many Polish taxi drivers remain silent until you speak to them. Once encouraged, they love to chat. One man tells us all about his Scottish cousin who’s embroiled in a bitter family feud. This taxi driver guide speaks no English and deposits me at the ski lift at the ski resort of Zacopane, smiling and signalling that he will wait. With the ski season over, it’s deserted at the top, with piles of slush, and some empty cafes. An old woman sells the ubiquitous pierogis (dumplings stuffed with potato or cheese) on top of an upturned bucket. I speak no Polish and nobody can tell us how to get the entrance of the National Park.

We trudge through the slush in the deserted ski resort, and head down to check out the pretty log-cabin lined town of Zacopane. At €120, it’s an expensive and disappointing day trip.

My advice is to learn some Polish before you go. Plenty of Krakovians speak perfect English. But many do not. And buy a guidebook. And carry a pocketful of zloty coins wherever you go. Toilet-trips cost 1 zloty everywhere. Sometimes even in a café where you’ve already bought a beer.

www.krakow-tours.biz

A three-hour guided tour around the Wielicska Salt mines is interesting. On the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites (along with the site at Auschwitz and  Krakow’s Historic town centre), we walk hundreds of steps down to the mines, seeing chandeliers, statues and a church all made of salt, before whooshing up to ground level in a shaky metal lift.

www.antycafe.pl

Back in Krakow’s old town, we eat steak smothered in blue-cheese sauce in Scandale Royal, and  drink vodka in the uber-cool communist-like bar, Antycafe, with a silent movie projector showing grainy cartoons on a wall, with ‘What’s Next’ daubed in red paint beside it. The Jazz Rock club beneath the bar is cavernous, with scary black-clad, pierced and tattooed goths grunging to a surprisingly mainstream selection of Linkin Park and Nirvana classics.

Krakow fizzes with history, beautiful architecture, and a quiet sense of cool. The perfect spot for a winter city break.

Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking

 

I first read this book during my J1 working summer in Seattle. In 2001. And managed to give up for a year. Since then, I’ve given up many, many times but always gave in eventually. Who knew it was simply a change of scenery that would finally persuade me to renounce the dirty things for once and for all?

Stephen King once said (before he gave up) that he thought smoking improved his writing as it helped the synapses in the brain. I’ve written a few features since giving up smoking, and they worked out fine. However, I did almost miss a deadline recently for the first time in 7 years – can I blame the lack of nicotine?

This time, I was surprised that I actually found it easy enough to give up. I was staying with my sister and her family - she hates smoking and usually wafts a hand in front of her nose whenever I came inside after having a cigarette. And it felt horrible hugging the babies after a cigarette. It was almost easier to give up than face the criticism on a daily basis. I also knew I didn't want to get into the habit of smoking in London, or to associate London with smoking at all.

I fully expect to gain at least half a stone, and I no longer wear my red or light blue skinny jeans, as they are simply too tight now. I eat cakes from the next-door deli every day for lunch, and they’ve christened me ‘The Feeder’ in the office as I try daily to press my calorific stash upon my workmates. Thank God for all the walking I do in London.
 

(Btw, my friends were visiting last weekend and I smoked outside a bar at 2 a.m.  - but I've allowed myself one little slip up....oops)

 

 

Lovely London Things #2: A Sunday (!) Photo of the Weird and Wonderful Things I See

Du Cane Court, Balham High Road: My friend lives near this Art Deco 1930's apartment block, at one time the largest privately-owned block of apartments under one roof in Europe.

 

The interesting thing about it is that it was one of the few buildings in the vicinity to survive the German bombings during World War 2. It has been suggested that Hitler planned to use this building as his future headquarters, and also that the Luftwaffe used it as a navigational aid when flying over London.

 

It has hosted a variety of famous theatre and musical personalities over the years, with the most famous resident currently Arthur Smith and Christopher Luscombe.

 

It's possible to rent a one-bedroom flat here for a mere £1560 per month.

A Book to Read When Treasure-Hunting

Posted By Daisy

HAPPINESS IS….browsing a vintage car boot sale on the South Bank on a crisp, sunny Saturday morning with tea and a jam crumpet in hand.


There were scary plastic dolls, authentic vintage bus blinds (£80) and French grain sack tote bags (£40).

There were vintage suitcases and faded props from the circus.

I bought a beautiful gold-rimmed, mint-green milk jug and sugar bowl, as well as some matching cups and saucers from Willacy Whimsy's stall.



How innovative are these blank notebooks made from the covers of old Ladybird books?

 

 

My brothers had a similar painting in their bedroom when we were very young. The boy's eyes would follow us around the room. Years later, I was fascinated to learn about the creepy story behind the mass produced 'Crying Boy' paintings.

 

I've found my dream car. Better get that best-selling novel started during NaNoWriMo.

 

All vendors were obliged to sell their goods from the back of vintage cars. How lovely!

 

Heft by Liz Moore

 

Elevator Pitch: A housebound, lonely, obese man rekindles an ancient friendship via a letter and his life begins to change for the better. But how does anyone ever end up like this in the first place?

It's 'Wonder' by RJ Palacio meets the 1980 'The Elephant Man' movie.

It's like no other book I've read before and I LOVED it. Although my mum found it a bit depressing, I couldn't agree and was HOOKED from beginning to end.

 

 

 

 

Lovely London Things #1: A Friday Photo of the Weird & Wonderful Things I See.

 

 

Flats in Baron's Court.

This Mona Lisa appears and disappears every week, depending on the whim of the owner.

Author Interview: Helen Fielding (sort of)

Posted By Daisy

 

BY NOW, everyone's sick of Bridget Jones and the countless articles written about her in recent weeks. Here's another one to add to the slush pile.

 

I went to see Helen Fielding speak in Primrose Hill on the night of her book launch and got a bit tipsy on one warm cup of wine. Which gave me the courage to ask her this (totally objective) question in front of 300 people...

 

'Do you think a 34-year-old singleton moving to London nowadays would have the same experience as Bridget, despite the fact that it's 17 years later and the internet now exists?'

 

She laughed when she realised I was writing down everything she said - but I had a 1200 word feature to write. And her answer was vague and non-committal and something about the internet having changed everything. I thought she'd say that people are the same everywhere, and that everyone's ultimately still looking for love no matter what year it is.

 

And afterwards, still elated from getting her autograph, we ate steak and blue cheese sauce and drank vodka and coke and I decided that I still loved London, despite the smelly old Tube and the fact that earlier on the Piccadilly line, a crumpled tissue fell out of a man's pocket onto my lap...shudder.

 

THERE are women everywhere. A glamorous elderly blond wearing a jaunty head scarf chats to her friends in the reserved seats in the front row, while another lady necks a plastic cup of red wine before taking off her coat and sitting down. A woman in leather trousers and a digital-print shirt opens her newly purchased hard-back with a squeak, while two men behind her joke that women outnumber men here and that they should have sold their tickets on the black market. At the back, a bookseller ties a few balloons to his stand, while an elderly gentleman arranges a motley assortment of wine bottles and some plastic cups on a desk.

On the evening of the publication of her first novel in ten years, and having already reached number one in the book charts as well as appearing on the One Show and the 6 o’clock radio news, Helen Fielding has shown up in this draughty hall in Primrose Hill to appear in conversation with veteran broadcaster, Sue MacGregor. Her goal is to raise money for her local Primrose Hill community library.

Initially panned by the critics as being inauthentic, anti-feminist and as presenting an unrealistic version of a now middle-aged Bridget, ‘Mad About the Boy’ is slowly beginning to receive positive reviews. Fielding’s long gold chain glitters, catching the light as she looks around smiling, seemingly unperturbed any negative reactions to the book.

After all, she dealt with criticism after the publication of Bridget Jones’s Diary in 1996.

‘We’ve got to be able to have comic heroines without being so terribly anxious about what it says,’ she said after the publication of Bridget Jones’s Diary.

 

 

I loved the original book and films. At 17, I admired Bridget for her admirable lack of self-reflection, her guilelessness and for having the impetuosity to run outside in the snow in her jumper and leopard print knickers.

I enjoyed spending the weekend reading ‘Mad About The Boy.’ It’s still funny. Daniel Cleaver has become a parody of all the dreaded Uncle Geoffrey’s at parties, and the satirical view of over-zealous North London mothers and their offspring (Atticus or Luigi) and Bridget’s responses their frantic emails and organised lunches make me smile.

Her relationship with her younger boyfriend is humorous. He reads an article about toy-boys and the rise of the sinister cougar, and gets scared, while she sees a sign for an Over-50’s club (activities include Bingo and Tea Dancing), and gets Botox.

There are moments of poignancy, when Bridget sits at home alone on a Saturday night, or when she wishes Mark was there to accompany her and her two children to the school play, or when she remembers her much-loved father and wonders how he would have reacted to certain situations. Just as in previous novels, Bridget’s still searching for love, and being a klutz and over-eating (this time, it’s bags of grated cheese), and furiously chewing Nicorette gum.

There are a few clunkers in the book. At times the language feels a bit try-hard, like a grandmother trying to be hip. At one point, Bridget sees a young ‘iBabe’ in a bar, and later, one of the mothers threatens her children with ‘Don’t you dare touch that dustbin or I shall enter you in the HUNGER GAMES’. I’ve never heard anyone speak like this.

However, the major criticism of the novel has been about the ‘cruel’ death of Mark Darcy. Although I never understood the attraction to him at the time. He was just so deathly dull

‘I don’t think cruel is quite fair because we have to remember that he’s not actually a living person,’ laughs Fielding, referring to the screech of horror in online forums after the death of Darcy was revealed in the Sunday Times magazine prior to the book’s publication.

‘I wanted to make her be in that situation [a single mother], and I was also fascinated by the internet age. When I first wrote Bridget, there wasn’t even the internet. Daniel Cleaver’s messages [about the short skirt] was just the office messaging service.’

‘I nearly didn’t put in her age but it’s like the 30-something spinster – it’s like the idea that when you get to a certain age, you’re going to start knitting….although there’s nothing wrong with that…She does have to handle certain things she didn’t have to handle before, but she’s basically the same person,’ says Fielding, herself now a 55-year-old single mother of two.

Fielding’s talent lies in her ability to make the mundane funny.

‘What makes me laugh? Life,’ she says, joking that the long gap between books was because she had discovered the internet and had been ‘Googling for 16 years’.

Her previous attempts to write serious novels were unsuccessful.

‘I can only sort of write about what I know,’ says Fielding, although she is at pains to point out, with a grin, that she is not Bridget Jones.

But Fielding is not as flighty as she sometimes appears. She used to write for three hours every morning before going to work on the political desk at the London Independent. She says her first novel, ‘Cause Celeb’ was ‘unreadable’ but fails to mention that it actually garnered good critical reviews. And she’s apparently worth £30 million. Likewise, Bridget is not as stupid as she appears, despite texting her boyfriend during an important meeting about the publication of her screen play, and obsessively counting twitter followers. Jones has raised two children on her own, written a screenplay, and is described as a ‘genius’ by her erstwhile publisher. She’s not doing too badly at all.

It’s clear that many women still feel a kinship towards Bridget and her mishaps, as some women in the audience raise their hands and speak about their personal lives, something Fielding says happens to her regularly. We’ve all identified with Bridget at some point in our lives, be it as a single thirty-something year old, or a widowed 51-year-old.

A fifteen-year-old fan asks Fielding about the nature of friendships in the book, tripping out the names Shazza and Jude confidently, as if she knew these characters well. 

‘The measure of happiness isn’t the partner, it’s the wider group. People go through different phases in their lives but it’s really friends who carry you through,’ says Fielding, who mentions that her friend, film producer, Richard Curtis, is in the audience.

‘The thing I like about the character is that she does have this joie-de-vivre, she dusts herself off and gets going again,’ says Fielding.

‘If you’re ever feeling a big down, a mixture of a self-help book and a PG Wodehouse can’t be [beaten],’ says Fielding, who thought she had coined the term ‘singleton’ but later realised she had inadvertently borrowed it from Wodehouse.

It’s obvious how fortunate Fielding feels to have won success third time round.

‘It’s a wonderful thing to happen and you can’t complain about it,’ she says. ‘Honestly, for the first event in the evening, it’s been a really lovely way to start it off and keep [my] feet on the ground.’

Afterwards, a long queue of women snakes around the hall waiting for Fielding to sign their book.

When it’s my turn, I tell her I’m a 34-year-old singleton who’s recently moved to London and ask her write something heartening. She looks up at me for a moment while continuing to write before thrusting the book back at me. KBO, she’s written inside. Which I find out later is Bridget’s motto. Keep Buggering On.

 

It was also Winston Churchill's motto, apparently.

My Top quotes from ‘Mad About The Boy’.

Summer is here! Finally, the sun is out, the trees are in blossom and everything is marvellous. But oh no! My upper arms are not ready. (Bridget)

Better to die of Botox than die of loneliness because you’re so wrinkly. (Talitha)

He wants me to say things like ‘Lick the soles of my shoes, lick out the toilet bowl. I mean, it’s just not hygienic. (Jude)

Children are asleep and house is all dark and quiet. Oh God, I’M SO LONELY. Everyone else in London is out laughing uproariously with their friends in restaurants and then having sex. (Bridget)

Have a look on Goop….See what Gwyneth has to say about sex and French-style parenting. (Tom)

Oh, darling, this is what I always feared would happen. I’ll get trapped on a desert island where they have no hair-extension specialist or Botox aesthetician and all my artifice will drain away. (Talitha)

Maybe will go to yoga and become more flexible. Or maybe will go out with friends and get plastered. (Bridget)

Never pursue a man, it will only make you unhappy. Anjelica Huston never, ever called Jack Nicholson. (Bridget)

Mum and Una strode furiously towards us with mad bouffed hair and wearing identical pastel Kate Middleton’s mother coat-dress outfits. (Bridget)

I was just taking a slurp of wine and laughed in the middle, then choked with the wine still in my mouth, and sick started coming up my throat. (Bridget)

But surely it is not normal to be too vain to put on your reading glasses to nit-comb your toy boy? (Bridget)

 



A Book To Read When You're Ancient

Posted By Daisy

www.marcjohns.com

A FEW weeks ago, I had a moment of 'Oh my Lord, I'm a childless spinster sharing a bathroom with strangers in a new city- how did this happen? I should've just married John or Brian or Philburn or whichever one of my highly-unsuitable former boyfriends.'

It may have had something to do with the fact that I would shortly be turning 35.

So I rang my mum to run through The Script with me. Which goes like this:

ME: 'I'm feeling a bit down. Am I a loser for moving to London at 34? Do you think I'll be single forever?'

HER: 'Don't be so silly, sure you only look about 25. You're any man's fancy and you'll meet someone lovely. What's for you won't pass you....'

It's not true but it's comforting and I don't know what I'd do without my mum's script.

In the end, my birthday was utterly lovely. We drank Bucks Fizz with freshly-squeezed orange juice at brunch, watched wealthy ladies try on vintage Rolexes at an antiques fair in Berkeley Square, listened to the funny banter of an auctioneer trying to flog half price Persian carpets in a hotel on Gloucester Road, and ate chocolate cake for tea.

My friend sent me this text: "As Oscar Wilde says, 35 is the perfect age for a woman, so much so that many women have decided to adopt it for the rest of their lives.'

And I sent her this in reply:

(It was totally tongue-in-cheek - one of the downsides to moving to London was that I had to miss my lovely friend Dee's fabulous Spanish wedding)


To which she replied:

G's photographic representation of her current life as a stay-at-home-mum

At least us ancient ladies still have a sense of humour, I guess.


Of course, when my mum came to visit a week later, they all had a great laugh when she pointed to this picture in a magazine saying 'This is the question that Daisy must ask herself every day.'

Elevator Pitch: Two teenagers meet at a cancer support meeting and fall in love via smart banter, literature and a trip to Amsterdam.

It's Michelle Magorian's 'Back Home' meets the precocious teenagers from Dawson's Creek.

I really enjoyed it, but it is a children's book and the Dawson's Creek speak can get a bit annoying- Which of us ever spoke like this as teenagers?

A Book To Read When You Realise that a Change Is As Good As A Holiday

Posted By Daisy

YESTERDAY, I realised I’ve been smiling to myself lots since I moved to London. Smiling as I march through Kings Cross/St Pancras at 8 a.m. on the way to work, ever-present earphones jammed in my ears. Smiling at the huge crowds of commuters waiting to cross the ticket barriers, at the ads lining the walls on the way up the escalators, and at the two ladies wearing shiny, swishy, curtain-material-patterned prom-dresses, at the girl nonchalantly boarding the tube wearing a see-through dry-cleaning bag over her clothes, and at the gorgeous guy in the check shirt and jeans who I lock eyes with for a second before whoosh – he's gone.

                

Smiling at the punters sitting outside on a damp Upper Street, Islington, having cups of tea and cigarettes, and at the elderly lady in a jaunty suit boarding a bus to Battersea.

Smiling at my new colleague as we walk past the barbed wire at Pentonville Prison, and at the custard tarts in the café across the road from work that I’ve been craving since watching ‘The Great British Bake Off’ last week.  

Daisy pinkened slightly while taking a photo of the Match.com ad
but then realised this is London and no-one cares!

Smiling at the dog barking at the grey squirrels skittering over the headstones of the graveyard I walk through every morning, and the shoe shops on the King’s Road, and the French shops on Butte Street, and at the early-morning dog walkers on the river’s walk near Hammersmith Bridge, and the amazing book shop behind Putney Bridge tube station.

Smiling as I sit on a bench in South Kensington waiting for my sister, watching men and women in Porches, Maseratis, Range Rovers and vintage Rolls Royce's whooshing past. Or as we walk home through Chelsea, spying huge chandeliers through apartment windows, and crowds of people standing outside the Troubadour enjoying post-work pints.

Hmmm, which celebrity do I fancy seeing today?

Smiling as I realise how easy it is to just pop into the Lowry exhibition in the Tate (I loved the song ‘Matchstalk Men’ in primary school), or listen to Simon Baron-Cohen talk about kindness in an evening lecture at the Royal Geographic Society or hear Ellie Goulding play in the Hammersmith Apollo in November.

 

Dalston - where you can get your hair cut in a cool hairdressers at 10pm on a Friday night, if you so desire

Smiling as I sit in a crowded Dalston pub eating chilli chips and drinking beers with my new workmates on a Friday night, and have to take three trains and a taxi home in the rain afterwards, and smiling as I write with a new writing group in a café in Primrose Hill before heading off to a nearby cupcake shop.

Smiling as we eat cronuts and tartiflette in Herne Hill Market and watch strangers swing dance in the drizzle.

Smiling as I pop to Zara in Regent Street after work and walk past the Ritz sign on the way to the tube, and at the fruit and vegetable stall propped up against the far side wall of the hotel. Smiling even as I push my way through a sea of suits at the turnstiles and have to let two crammed-to-the-brim tubes pass me by.

I don’t think I knew how much I had craved novelty until now.

I've been reading this book on my daily commute. It’s not an easy book to read and I often find myself flicking backwards in the story. But I’m hooked.

Elevator Pitch: An old gangster has arrived back in Bohane after 25 years, and all around feathers are being ruffled and old feuds being resurrected.

It’s Charles Bukowski’s Post Office meets Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (more specifically the scene with Mercutio and Romeo posturing by Venice Beach before the masked ball.)

And the writing is bring-a-lump-to-your-throat amazing.

‘She looked out at the night. A swirl of stars made cheap glamour of the sky above the bog plain.’

Barry lived and worked in Cork for years, and it’s apparent in his prose. Bohane is a melted, twisted, tarnished-Dali-clock version of Cork city. It’s the city seen through a Valley-of-the-Ashes haze. The language and descriptions are familiar ('norrie', 'gatch', 'pikey') and I smile when I realise Barry has immortalised a real-life Cork character.

‘The madwoman of Smoketown paraded in her white cowgirl suit, sequins aglitter, and directed the sky traffic of angry gulls.’

 I haven’t seen her in a decade, but I remember this lady, directing traffic outside the Capitol Cineplex, with white cowboy boots and shiny, over-pink cheeks.

‘City of Bohane’ also makes me happy that someone from Cork,  such a tiny city, can create something as beautiful and lyrical as Shakespeare.