Since men first emerged from the water, they have written psalms in praise of the river. Old Man River. The River of Jordan. The Rivers of Babylon. Moon River. Shenandoah… “Yes, the river knows,” crooned Jim Morrison. Nick Drake softly sang of The River Man. Leonard Cohen heard the river answer. The Band offered up their River Hymn.

“I was born by the river,” cried out Sam Cooke in a way that suggested an estuary of tears might turn to baptismal waters that would deliver his people from the chains of history in which they sang. Springsteen’s river, a symbol of redemption that might release him from a marriage gone cold and the weight of dreams that had become lies or something worse.

The Mississippi river that is the spine of Huckleberry Finn. The Ohio river that swept John and Pearl to safety in The Night Of The Hunter. The Tiber, on which Romulus and Remus were set adrift, watched over by the river deity Tiberinus, who delivered them to be suckled by Lupa the wolf. The Nile that bore Moses away from the murderous Pharaoh in a basket of bulrushes coated with pitch.

Creedence’s Green River, maybe a metaphor for the Mekong, or the fictional Nung river from Apocalypse Now. Down by the River, where Neil Young shot his baby. Tim Hunter’s film River’s Edge. The bourgeois killer of Banks of the Ohio by the Blue Sky Boys. Flannery O’Connor’s parable The River from A Good Man Is Hard To Find.

The apocalyptic river in flood: John Lee Hooker’s Tupelo, Led Zeppelin’s When The Levee Breaks, Sinatra’s River Stay Way From My Door. Driftwood on the River by Ernest Tubb. Weary River by Roy Acuff. The River of Nine Sorrows by The Grateful Dead. Lost on the River by Hank Williams. Harlem River Quiver by Duke Ellington. The Moon Fell In The River by Count Basie. Whiskey River. Moody River. River In The Pines by Joan Baez. Big River by Johnny Cash. Blue River by Elvis Presley. Many rivers to cross. Cry me a river. Love is a lonesome river. Somewhere down the crazy river. You don’t pull no punches but you don’t push the river. Take me to the river…

Shall we gather at the river?

Coming in October, stock up on morphine.

Trailer:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbLgszfXT…

Esquire feature:

 http://www.esquire.com/print-this/the-ro…

NY Times Feature:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/movies…

Dublin-based music journalist Murphy delivers a sharp sense of adolescence’s gloom and irony in his jaw-dropping debut.

Protagonist John Devine is born into a storm of biblical proportions. The downbeat outlook of his scripture-spouting mother Lily shapes the boy’s life. “You know, people say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” she says. “Don’t believe a word of it. What doesn’t kill you just makes you sick.”

Named after the titular gospel song, John is wracked by terrifying dreams of a large, sinister crow and nurtures an unhealthy obsession with a grotesque book, Harper’s Compendium of Bizarre Nature Facts. He also scribbles accounts of his encounters with his Irish village’s denizens, including coarse raconteur Har The Barrel and nosy neighbor Mrs. Nagle. John’s life takes a turn at age 15, when cool, Rimbaud-quoting Jamey Corboy draws him into a brave new world of drink, smoke and the local fauna. Their wild ride together comes to a shuddering halt after John has a breakdown while the toxic twins are desecrating a local church and Jamey is banished to a far-off boys’ home.

The revelations here aren’t new; at its core, this strange little volume is really just a coming-of-age story. But Murphy works literary alchemy on every page, filtering the daily tedium of small-town life through John’s bizarre worldview and enriching the story with a caustic humor that still leaves room for genuine moments of friendship and familial tenderness. Punctuated by John’s vivid dreams, Jamey’s lascivious anecdotes and furtive letters, and the irregular observations of a vulnerable young man, this jarring tale of sonic youth dares readers to put it down.

A terrific, disquieting addition to the long tradition of Irish storytelling.

…is now online. Nadine O’Regan, Kate O’Toole, John Kelly and myself chewing over Ken Loach’s Looking For Eric, Tom Murphy’s The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant at the Abbey, John Boyne’s The House of Special Purpose, plus selected highlights from the season.

 http://www.rte.ie/tv/theview/

Full review when it goes online.

 http://twitter.com/hmhbooks/status/20211…

J the R reviewed on The Book Show on ABC Radio National in Australia:

 http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/storie…

And a review in Lawyers Weekly:

 http://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/blogs/bo…

Thanks to the Dublin Writers Festival and all who sail in her.
Here’s the blog report and pics from the Project debutante event with Aifric, Ed, Declan and myself:
 http://www.dublinwritersfestival.com/blo…

“Be born anywhere, little embyro novelist, but do not be born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the burden of original sin, not under the doom of salvation. Go out and be born among the gypsies or thieves or among happy workaday people who live in the sun and do not think about their souls.” – Pearl S. Buck