Poguemahone is stuffed with rambles of blather if you were on the receiving end of something similar at a Pogues tribute night in Cricklewood from some old boring soak with the green-tinted glasses on, you’d be drinking up and making your excuses to leave. Plus, when you get to the novel’s supposed pay-off, it feels middlin’ for the mileage you’ve put in. The wavy-gravy flashback rollercoaster soon exasperates the reader as it dips back from charging at the fantastical to find itself stuck in the maudlin. The never-ending references to 1960s and ’70s pop culture also become tiresome, relevant only to those of a certain vintage: On the Buses, Mott the Hoople, Arthur Brown McCabe even passes off Shuggie Otis as a character. But a novel idea does not always give birth to novel expression, and a step back in style is sometimes required to appreciate the beauty of forceful writing the book’s chaos leads to confusion for the reader, too, not complexity. Poguemahone is an achievement for the sheer effort of creating this waterfall of words, and to stick with its format, which I’m sure had McCabe questioning himself in the process. What follows is a cascade of reminiscences from these characters and others from the Irish diaspora in London, stretching across decades (from 1950s Soho swing to drug-dripping squats in 1970s Kilburn), filled out by a cast of unintentionally risible sorts, who turn up, tune in and drop out, with little register, man.įor many of us, The Butcher Boy will likely remain the precious jar that captured the firefly of McCabe's talent

This reader found little pleasure in it, though, and by the end found it infuriating, with its title chiming in the mind for all the wrong reasons.ĭan Fogarty is an Irish man in England, and it appears he is looking after his sister Una, who suffers from dementia, in a care home in Margate. McCabe has always seemed the sporting sort – a fine handicapper of his own books – which is apparent here, in his 14th novel, with his decision to carry the weight of 600-plus pages in a kind of free-form prose.

What will he turn up with now? The next McCabe novel might stagger, stumble or even pull up lame, but if it hits its stride, like The Butcher Boy, it never touches the ground. The literary hooves of Patrick McCabe approaching with a new work always gives a frisson of fear and excitement.

Patrick mccabe poguemahone