Mondo Desperado, Patrick McCabe

MCCABE

Book Review

Mondo Desperado (2000)

EW's GRADE
B+

Details Release Date: Mar 07, 2000; Writer: Patrick McCabe; Genres: Comic Novels, Fiction, Short Stories; Publisher: HarperCollins

Two-time Booker Prize finalist (''The Butcher Boy,'' ''Breakfast on Pluto'') McCabe goes tabloid with these 10 stories based in the fictional burg of Barntrosna. A twisted anthology of adult fairy tales -- complete with eccentrics, ogres, and fair maidens -- Mondo Desperado (which is credited to the pseudonymous Phildy Hackball) careens from comic portraits of paranoia (''Hot Nights at the Go-Go Lounge'') and delusion (''My Friend Bruce Lee'') to fantastic sci-fi yarns (''The Valley of the Flying Jennets'') and pulpy, cracked morality tales (''The Forbidden Love of Noreen Tiernan''). Underlying it all is McCabe's playfully jaundiced lampoon of small-town life on the Emerald Isle. Think Hunter S. Thompson meets Frank McCourt.
Originally posted Mar 15, 2000

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