Call Me the Breeze
Patrick McCabe Faber & Faber, 341pp, £16.99
ISBN 0571217451
In the world of "bog gothic", the name coined for Patrick McCabe's distinctive literary sub-genre, the cast of grotesques usually serves to throw into relief humanity's baser impulses, as manifested through the particular mentality of small-town Ireland. But in this, his sixth novel, the target of his comic-book satire is the art (or is it business?) of writing - and while enjoying a snide cackle at the recent "Oirish" memoir production line, the reader cannot help wondering at times if he is starting to look too closely inwards.
Joey Tallon, McCabe's unreliable narrator, is a one-eyed former jailbird and autodidact living in a mobile home with an inflatable woman whom he dresses up as his father's long-dead mistress. So far, so much to be expected; the more warped your vision of the world, the theory goes, the more closely you see the truth. There is perfect integrity to Joey's moral universe, but it quickly becomes apparent that he is the blarney counterpart to the existentialists' outsider - where he sees society failing to understand him and his pure intentions, the reader begins to appreciate him as a kind of idiot savant.
Joey's memoir, sold for a large sum to a London publisher as The Amazing Adventures of Blobby McStink, is culled from scraps of diary, lovingly catalogued by his former cell-mate Bonehead. From his drug-coloured 1970s, through his spell in prison for a crime that is revealed only halfway through, to his reinvention as writer, cineaste and prophet, Joey's story is actually an oblique history of 30 years of Irish political conflict. In the small border town of Scotsfield, however, there are more boundaries than the geographical and sectarian. Truth, fantasy and fiction exist in a psychedelic swirl that allows the reader to glimpse the cold world of fact beyond Joey's head, and at the same time hold on to sympathy for the childlike imaginative world he inhabits, where a hippie version of love prevails. This contrasts with the reality of life in Scotsfield, where IRA sympathisers hold positions of civil power, decrying murder from the podium even as bombs rip apart a peace rally and slaughter is swept under the carpet.
McCabe's adolescent obsession with comic books is reflected in the short, punchy chapters that create a frame-by-frame picture in prose, replete with exclamation marks. His narrator's creative vision is likewise a patchwork of 1970s and 1980s pop culture. While Joey debates the merits of realism versus magical realism, his faith in his own talents never wavers. "I remember reading a piece by James Joyce where he said that, when you write, it's like what you're doing is drawing water. You lower the pail into the well of the subconscious and you wait and see what comes up," he reflects earnestly. Various critics have compared McCabe to Joyce; this may be a sly reference to the fate of any Irish writer who abandons realism.
Grotesque humour and an unsurpassed ear for the music of unpolished Irish dialogue, which remains just the right side of pantomime dialect, are once more displayed in abundance. The problem is that it all seems to go on for too long. This may be part of the joke, but it would have been better served by paring down Joey's ruminations on writing and by keeping the satire more succinct. At the same time, McCabe's characteristic pathos makes Joey a memorable anti-hero, in the tradition of the disturbed and disturbing Francie Brady of McCabe's best-known work, The Butcher Boy - and one who would also lend himself handsomely to film.
Stephanie Merritt is deputy literary editor of the Observer
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