'You might think, on first sight, that Poguemahone was following in the wake of Finnegan in its attempt to be enormously long, very dense and quite inaccessible.

'If you’re looking for this century’s Ulysses, look no further than Patrick McCabe’s Poguemahone.'- The Guardian Modernist and eager to push the boundaries of his own art and the art form of the novel, here is a novelist and novel to celebrate in all their ribald, audacious, outrageous, and compelling brilliance.'-Paul Perry, The Independent (Ireland) Indeed, among his 14 novels and two Booker Prize nominations, this stands out as risky, experimental work by an artist reluctant to rest on his laurels. 'Poguemahone is a shape-shifting epic of the Irish in England, steeped in music and folklore, crammed with characters, both real and imagined, on a scale McCabe has never attempted before. A moving saga of youth, age, and memory-by turns achingly poetic, knowingly philosophical, and bitterly funny.”- Kirkus Reviews At this point, the reader has merely to hang on and enjoy the ride. “The vernacular, drunken verse format may be daunting at first, but after a few pages the narrative develops a hypnotic rhythm, as if one is sitting on a barstool listening to the narrator unspool his story over a pint (or three). Lively and ambitious in form, this admirably extends the range of McCabe’s career-long examination of familial and childhood trauma.'- Publishers Weekly 'McCabe draws the reader into a rambling web replete with Gaelic folklore, IRA agitation, and a soundtrack of glam and progressive rock. Once you’ve done that, gravity does the rest.'-John Williams, New York Times ' Poguemahone is like a high dive: The toughest part of reading it might be convincing your feet to leave the board.

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