A couple of shysters create a fake poet to write for the provincial poetry magazine they run because their cushy jobs are at risk – that is what this book is about, with the end being the unravelling of their great masterplan.
They are essentially jammy dodgers, dodging real work, and instead using their work time to discuss biscuits such as the jammy dodger, which is the conversation that the book opens on.
In the first part of the book there were a few quotes from various poems and I was thinking “ah, it’s going to be one of those books”, but that was just setting the scene stuff and the story soon took hold. And as you might expect from a book where poetry plays a big part, the writing in places is poetic. For example the way the geography of Belfast is explained at one point, and also a chance encounter with a kingfisher whilst out walking with a girlfriend (We both saw the flash of blue-green – stood stock still – caught his intense singularity of purpose; a microsecond drawn out. Rosie turned to me in wonder, and in her eyes... etc.).
The book is funny too with the humour never being forced. There are big funny moments in the book, like when milk is first introduced to the story, and a funny radio interview.
It is set in late-1980s Belfast with its troubles and all, but that is never really brought to the forefront of the story and is kept in the background. As it says in book the narrator was using poetry as an escape from the “bomb-lit domain of chaos and violence” on the evening news.
And if you want an escape from real life too you’d do worse than spend your time reading this book.
This book is listed on Amazon UK HERE.
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