J the R Guardian and Boston Globe Reviews
August 30th, 2009 by petermurphyJ the R Guardian review by Hermione Hoby.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug…
And a Short Takes review in the Boston Globe. EXTREME spoiler alert.
The territory and the adventure
August 27th, 2009 by petermurphy“The thing you play at the beginning is the territory. What follows is the adventure.” – Ornette Coleman
The gift of the grab
August 25th, 2009 by petermurphyJ the R tagged as ‘grabber’ by the San Francisco Chronicle.
God bless the mid-west
August 25th, 2009 by petermurphyLovely review of J the R from the Plain Dealer at www.cleveland.com.
John the Revelator’ by Peter Murphy is a compelling coming-of-age story
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Paula McLain
Peter Murphy’s darkly gorgeous debut, “John the Revelator,” is an Irish coming-of-age novel. It’s also a meditation on why we tell stories. John Devine is the only son of his colorful, chain-smoking, single mother Lily. He’s a singular boy, flung into the world on the night of a raging storm. In the opening sentence, he notes, “My mother said the thunder was so loud, she flinched when it struck, strobes of lightning and slam-dancing winds and volleys of rain until it blew itself out and sloped off like a spent beast.”
What’s key here, besides the delightful pyrotechnics of Murphy’s language, is Lily’s power and presence as a storyteller. She’s a yarn-spinner, full of fables and parables and Irish folk tales liberally interspersed with half-attributed biblical quotes. Like his namesake, the apostle who wrote the Book of Revelation, John is beset by dreadful, apocryphal dreams, the transcription of which pepper the novel as high-literary set pieces.
Through them we understand how John’s imagination colors his world, sets him apart, and also tortures him. A loner who would rather spend time with the “Harper’s Compendium of Bizarre Nature Facts” than people, John is given to fixating on the grisly details of tape-worm infestations, and other equally cringe-producing parasitic phenomena.
All this changes, gratefully, with Jamey Corboy, a new kid in town with whom John finds an instant affinity. Jamey’s an accomplished writer with a thing for Arthur Rimbaud, and he’s as charming as they come. Suddenly there’s high adventure in John’s life — trouble swirled together with real happiness. Then John is cornered by a terrible dilemma that puts Jamey’s fate in his hands.
Murphy’s portrayal of the intensity of adolescent friendships is compelling. He’s also a bit of a virtuoso with language and imagery: a dead owl has closed “creepy-toy eyes”; sea gulls sound like “bowed wood-saws”; men stand on the edge of a dance-hall floor “like sad silverbacks.”
Here is John searching the town dump for the “Harper’s Compendium” he believes Lily has thrown away: “My chest swelled and my eyes rolled over the landfill, taking in the banjaxed washing-machines and ratty armchairs, the collapsed cardboard boxes and broken umbrellas and discarded items of clothing. Shoes. Lots of shoes, estranged from their former partners, gone downhill since separation, laces frayed, tongues showing. A duvet stained with the shapes of countries that never existed.”
Equally memorable in this novel is the strange, magnetic love between John and his mother. As Lily sickens, we see her life force draining, but not her power over John, her indelible place in his life. The world Murphy has created for John — like the one we live in — is often full of loss and unmanageable chaos. The boy remains too aware of the decay and disintegration he quotes from his “Compendium,” but he’s also been shown, by Jamey and his mother, that our stories, if we believe them, can right us on this wildly spinning planet, and soothe us even in the direst heart of the storm.
Paula McLain is a novelist and critic in Cleveland Heights.
Five Knuckle Shuffle
August 24th, 2009 by petermurphyFive questions with the Rev Murphy over at the Chapters blog…
Wexarcana
August 23rd, 2009 by petermurphyJ the R reviewed in the Dallas Morning News
The Ballad of Rick and Johnny
August 23rd, 2009 by petermurphyDavid Kamp’s Vanity Fair story about the friendship between Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash, first published 2004.
http://davidkamp.com/2006/09/american_co…
Here’s short film about the recording of American V: A Hundred Highways.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8oaABiZD…
And here’s a classic: Anton Corbijn’s clip for Delia’s Gone.
Well Dick, it is what it is…
August 22nd, 2009 by petermurphyJ the R review by Richard Eder in the LA Times. Beware of plot spoilers.
Once Upon a Time in the West
August 18th, 2009 by petermurphyToday John the Revelator is published in the US by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Godspeed.
Thanks and praise…
August 18th, 2009 by petermurphyMany thanks to the wonderful folks at the Kilkenny Arts and Flatlake Festivals for having us over the weekend. We had a ball. Sound Bloke of the Year award goes to noir maestro Declan Burke for giving us a lift back to Connolly station.
Here’s a nice wee piece about J the R in the US magazine Paste.