skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Funny Ha Ha
I got pretty surprising news this week that my first Duffy novel, The Cold Cold Ground has been longlisted for The Last Laugh Award at CrimeFest. It was Colin Bateman who told me about this, who, of course has been longlisted himself. The Last Laugh Award is for the Best Humourous Crime Novel published in the British Isles in the last year. I don't know if you've read The Cold Cold Ground, but if you have you'll know that it isn't exactly a laugh riot, indeed its a pretty serious noir set against the background of the Hunger Strikes in 1981. However there are quite a few jokes in the novel and one of the things I did try to do with the book was capture Belfast's famous propensity for black humour. In Ireland's literary tradition moral seriousness has always been modulated by wit, black humour and irony - and I feel that in Ulster this has been taken to an even darker and more interesting degree by a population who frequently use humour as a coping mechanism. (Perhaps one of the reasons my books don't do particularly well in America is that their sarcasm and irony is accepted at face value?) Anyway much of The Cold Cold Ground was funny to me and I'm delighted that the judges of CrimeFest seem to have gotten the joke.
Here's that longlist in full:
Colin Bateman The Prisoner of Brenda
Agatha Raisin Hiss and Hers
Simon Brett Blotto, Twinks and the Bootleggers
Hannah Dennison A Vicky Hill Exclusive!
Ruth Dudley Edwards Killing The Emperors
Hesh Kestin The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats
Adrian McKinty The Cold Cold Ground
Catriona McPherson Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses
Eileen Robertson Blackmail for Beginners
James Runcie Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death
Anne Zouroudi The Bull of Mithros
26 comments:
Your response?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E84VqqCPI7w
Paul
Perfect.
Ha! Tell your humor-hating editors to stick it up their stolid, jokeless kazoos.
That's an interesting list. I don't think of Anne Zouroudi as a humor writer, either. And how could you neglect to mention that last year's winner was Declan Burke?
Finally, my chance to be on the inside. The Beloved Spouse bought me a copy of THE COLD COLD GROUND for my birthday and I bumped it straight to the top of the queue.
Congratulations on the nomination.
Peter
No, my present editors, Rebecca, at Serpents Tail and Dan at 7th St. are fine with my humour. But there was an editor at a different house who hated my "jokes" and cut every single one of them! Yikes.
And yes nice that you pointed it out that last year winner was Dec Burke for the amazing AZC.
3 micks up for this year's prize: me Bateman and RD Edwards. I havent read RDE's but I enjoyed the latest Bateman as usual.
Dana
Awesome.
Well, awesome if you like it.
Pretty shitty if you dont...
The book certainly deserves to be on the list. But it could be misleading if people were under the impression that they were going to settle down and read a nice comic novel, a la Janet Evanovich.
My often cash strapped friend still manages to send one crime novel or mystery to his friend in Holland. He was very happy to show me that this year it was The Cold, Cold Ground. Talk about your honors...
Dear Adrian,Congratulations re: Last Laugh Award but the most precious comment is from your daughter.She sounds like a real charmer.Perhaps in America due to our very recent history as a nation with strivings towards a successful bourgeois lifestyle and desperately trying to not give offense to any ethnic or religious group,wit,irony and sarcasm are often lost.In our state we have license plates which add USA and packages misdirected because they were deemed foreign mail.Best Alan New Mexico USA
Congratulations! What happens next (apart from chuckling, entertained readers)?
Seana
Exactly! Although Evanovich doesnt make me laugh....the opposite in fact.
Alan
There is definitely a different dialectic in the US where British Isles sarcasm is often not picked up. The Daily Show is supposed to be the prime example of ironic American humour but even that feels pretty broad to me.
The Onion is better at it.
Deb
What happens next is waiting a couple of months until I lose to a much more popular writer.
The Daily Show, it seems to me, is more late-night talk show than anything else, with all that such an association implies. The Onion, on the other hand, is the one convincing rejoinder I can think of to the proposition that everything in our culture is worse than it one was.
Theh Stefanie Plum novels remind me of Portlandia a bit, in that the whole idea and some of the premises are funnier than the actual execution.
I think sometimes people think John Stewart is more ironic than he is simply because he's smart. Colbert is actually a more ironic personality.
I don't find dry British and Irish humor incomprehensible. But sometimes the broader British humor that I've seen on sitcoms and such is not very funny to me at all. I think it's partly because we don't have the same stock characters and cultural references. Or maybe we do and I just don't find ours that funny either.
Peter
Indeed. And very overpraised for what is essentially a man chatting to celebrities.
The Onion however is smart and dry and frequently tasteless, which is what you want in your satire.
Seana
You're not wrong, there are so many terrible Britcoms. The vast majority in fact are unwatchably unfunny. I think Americans wouldnt think Brits were so smart if they moved to London and watched British TV for a month.
Well, I think he's better than Bill Maher. But the Onion, I think, is up there with the best humor this country has produced. (The U.S., I mean. I'm not sure what country you're in now.) The Onion is the Man Without Qualities of 21st-century ephemeral American satire.
On a side note, Adrian, any thoughts on this?
http://viewtv.co.uk/belfast/
Peter
Transitioning back to Oz.
Matt
I think its a step in the right direction as are integrated schools (which still only represent 5% of N. Ireland's school population!)
Congrats!!! Sometimes the humor isn't understood. I've had to have my English friend explain a lot to me about the comedy.
wow! congratulations. where is this book available?
Just finished this book. Loved it! Laughed out loud in some places. I'm recommending it to all my friends. Can't wait for the next Sean Duffy book.
Kathryn in California.
Kathryn
Thank you, I appreciate the kind words...
aulds [url=http://www.celinebagnamey.com]celine bag[/url] pqcju http://www.celinebagnamey.com pozm [url=http://www.celineluggagetotename.com]celine bag[/url] kyjdd http://www.celineluggagetotename.com askp [url=http://www.pickcelinehandbags.com]celine handbags[/url] tfnms http://www.pickcelinehandbags.com oiqvp [url=http://www.savecelinebags.com]celine bag[/url] zsevn http://www.savecelinebags.com iwach [url=http://www.goodcelinehandbags.com]celine bag[/url] dnxpp http://www.goodcelinehandbags.com oaevk [url=http://www.onlinecelinebags.com]celine bag online[/url] senbf http://www.onlinecelinebags.com nhsd
Post a Comment