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Read Divorcing Jack (1996)

Divorcing Jack (1996)

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Rating
3.8 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
1559703598 (ISBN13: 9781559703598)
Language
English
Publisher
arcade publishing

Divorcing Jack (1996) - Plot & Excerpts

More black comedy than true Irish noir, Divorcing Jack is my first foray into Colin Bateman. Based on first impressions I believe I will read more of his books, even if this one did not deliver on all fronts. I am already familiar with several flavors of noir : classic 1940's West Coast, East Coast, Florida camp, Scandinavian bleak, Scottish rumpus (Brookmyre). This here is an attempt to branch out into Irish, with London calling next (Ken Bruen?). And as I like to do with new authors, I have chosen the debut novel, in order to see how the author and his characters develop in time.The hero of the story is not Jack, and is not getting a divorce (hopefully). His name is Dan Starkey, and he is a satirical columnist for a Belfast newspaper. Safe choice: write what you know about, Mr Bateman! although I hope the author is less fond of drink than his diminutive hero. Drinking lands Starkey in trouble with the missus after she catches him kissing a girl he picked up while lying pickled to the ears in a public park. Beer and cider do not for a good hangover make. Worse than the hangover is the discovery of the dying body of his one night stand who murmurs with her last breath : "Divorce Jack!". This is the starting point of a wild rollercoaster ride peppered with car chases, gunfights, wife taking revenge for the betrayal, multiple kidnappings, underworld bosses chasing Dan side by side with the IRA, the Protestant paramilitary factions, the police, the army, possibly a couple of foreign Secret Services too. Everything going down while the country prepares to elect a new Prime Minister, a guy Starkey intensely dislikes for his 'hollier than thou' pacifist agenda. And let's not forget the surprise nun with the bad atitude from the cover: Her name was Lee Cooper. Her parents had a warped sense of humour. And her friends called her Jean. As a stand up comedy routine the novel is often real funny, but uneven. Some jokes are a hoot, others are a tad stale and forced. I chalk this down to debut jitters of a talented artist trying too hard to impress on his first night out. As political satire it functions even better, reminding me that laughing while climbing to the gallows pole is one way to keep sane while the world around burns. And Belfast knows all about burning. There's a little piece of trivia in the book that almost passes unnoticed but it is enough to make me not want to find out more about the game of Irish roulette: it involves a petrol bomb and an ability to blow out matches very quickly. As a crime novel it suffers somewhat from lack of originality, or it may be the case that I have seen one too many Guy Ritchie movies or that Bateman is too similar to Christopher Brookmyre, who writes much funnier and much, much more biting satire across the Irish sea in bonny Scotland. The story is saved by local colour, a riveting glimpse at a region ravaged by civil war, sectarian terrorism and distrust. At one point Dan Starkey is assigned as a minder for a visiting American journalist, and they get to talking: - Stick to calling it Northern Ireland, although you'll hear variations. If you're a Loyalist you'll call it Ulster, if you're a Nationalist you call it the North of Ireland or the Six Counties, if you're the British Government you call it the Province.- And what do you call it, Mr. Starkey?- Home. As a final impression, the novel holds together well in the plot and character department, but the general vibe is of light reading, as the more serious tones (present and truly disturbing) were subverted by the need to be funny at all cost. There's enough promise here to continue with the setting and its creator.

An enjoyable romp of a thriller, set in and around Belfast, with some lovely comic touches. Not massively original, but a good, entertaining take on an old standard with some very nice social commentary thrown in for good measure. Violent without being especially gritty - think Quentin Tarantino with a Northern Irish accent and you've pretty much got it. If you bought this in an airport or train station to read while travelling, you wouldn't be disappointed - but I also doubt you'd remember it once the journey was over. In short, a good solid 'not bad'.Edit - having read some of the other reviews, I feel I should add that some (a lot) of the humour in this book might not translate if you're not at least vaguely familiar with 'the Troubles' in NI. Some people also seem to have struggled with the occasional bit of Belfast idiom that crops up, but I felt that was used pretty sparingly and was fairly transparent in meaning even though it wasn't something I'd heard before - but each to his or her own.

What do You think about Divorcing Jack (1996)?

Okay, quick synopsis. Dan Starkey is an Irish journalist who likes his drink. One day, he meets a student called Margaret and takes her back to his house when a party is in swing. There, he kisses her, gets thrown out of the house. Within 24 hours, Margaret is found murdered by Starkey with her last words being "Divorce...Jack." He goes on the run, trying to find who murdered Margaret and why? And most importantly, who is Jack and why is he divorced?This is a funny book. Seriously funny. Bateman writes Starkey as a tongue-in-cheek guy who you can't help liking. Every page contains a laugh or at worst, a guilty chuckle. I don't know what to really say about this book without spoiling it. All I say is give it a go and then afterwards, watch the brilliant film starring David Thewlis. It is hilraious!
—Helen

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2508355.htmlI picked this up at a Brussels literary event last year, at which Bateman himself spoke and autographed a couple of his works for me. I had previously read a couple of his thrillers set in Belfast, usually involving struggling journalists who get into political and criminal difficulties, though I don't think I had looked at any of them this century. Divorcing Jack is more political, but it is a slightly different politics to our time line, set in an alternate 1995 where the Alliance Party is about to win the elections and take power. (I read this bit with particular interest because in our timeline, the real Alliance Party's central Director of Elections in 1995 was, er, me; and we were struggling to hit the 6.5% we got in 1996, never mind win outright. A significant subplot revolves around the party's candidate for North Belfast, who in 1995-96, in our timeline, was, again, me; but Bateman's fictional McGarry had a much more successful political career than I did.) As with the other Bateman novels I've read, the narrator is a journalist down on his luck. Here, his marriage is on the rocks, two other women appear on the scene, and he unleashes a criminal scandal which threatens to rock the political world to its foundations. Bateman's Northern Ireland is a small world. There is only one taxi driver in the whole of Belfast, apparently. The least credible element of this alternate Northern Ireland is that everyone at the top level of politics has known each other practically from childhood, and that the battles of young love are still being fought a decade or two later, along with all the other political battles. I do actually know of a couple of countries where this is a decent explanation of a lot of the political dynamics; but Northern Ireland, given its internal division and also relative permeability to outside influences, is not one of them.But I'm far enough away in time and (usually) space to appreciate that not every detail of the fictional politics of Bateman's Northern Ireland needs to be convincing to make it an entertaining book; and it is an entertaining book - in particular, he catches the caustic Belfast wit very well, also showing how it can link to a cynical worldview where scepticism even of the apparently heroic is always justified. It's not a terribly attractive approach, but at least it means that, by assuming the worst in advance, you are more likely to get pleasant surprises than unpleasant surprises.It's also striking, to a visitor from the 21st century, how much the plot of this book set in 1995 depends on old technology - the McGuffin is a cassette tape of which there is only one copy; when your spouse goes missing you have to call round all imaginable relatives and friends and ask if they know where your loved one is, because nobody has a mobile phone. Anyway, it's of its time, but it brought me back to places which were very important to me once, and showed them to me from a different angle and in a different light. I don't know how well it would be received outside Northern Ireland - the humour is very local - and I'm not even sure how well it was received here - rather too close to the bone in some cases. But I liked it.
—Nicholas Whyte

I generally liked the book and no small part of that comes from recognizing the small bars and larger political landscape of Belfast from the mid 90s. The larger plot seems a bit ridiculous truth be told, but in Bateman's debut novel you see him finding his brilliant beta male voice infused alternately with sarcasm and feebleness that manifests itself so excellently in "Mystery Man." The scene with the nun is particularly hilarious. I plan on reading all of Bateman's works so it was good to go back to the beginning to see how his style/voice evolves over time. (I don't know how best to describe the greatness of parts of "Mystery Man" except through my example of shamelessly pushing the title on friends and strangers alike. Northern Irish-isms can make non-natives scratch their head at times but any author fluent in self-deprecating snark-tastic sarcasm is speaking my language) "The car door was unlocked. I pulled it open. A nun sat dwarfed behind the wheel, resplendent in brown and cream. I said 'In God's name, help me.' She gave me a look that was more Armalite than Carmelite and said 'Fuck off.'"
—Josh

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