The Holy CityNow entering his sixty-seventh year, Chris McCool can confidently call himself a member of the Happy Club: he has an attractive and exceedingly accommodating Croatian girlfriend and has been told he bears more than a passing resemblance to Roger Moore. As he looks back on the glory days of his youth, he recalls the swinging sixties of rural Ireland: a decade in which the cool cats sang along to Lulu and drove around in Ford Cortinas, when swinging meant wearing velvet trousers and shirts with frills, and where Dolores McCausland - Dolly Mixtures to those who knew her best - danced on the tops of tables and set the pulses of every man in small-town Cullymore racing. Chris McCool had it all back then. He had the moves, he had the car, and he had Dolly, a woman who purred suggestive songs and tugged gently at her skin-tight dresses, a Protestant femme fatale who was glamorous, transgressive and who called him her very own 'Mr Wonderful'. She was, in short, the answer to this bastard son of a Catholic farmer's prayers. Except that there was another Mr Wonderful in town, a certain Marcus Otoyo - a young Nigerian with glossy curls and a dazzling devoutness that was all but irresistible. Although Chris, of course, was interested in Marcus only because of their shared religious fervour and mutual appreciation of the finer things. That was all. Besides, Mr McCool was always a hopeless romantic - some even described him as excessively so - but is there anything wrong with that? Spiked with macabre humour and disquieting revelations, The Holy City is a brilliant, disturbing and compelling novel from one of Ireland's most original contemporary writers. |
Contents
J Pops International Celeb | |
Abide With | |
Jerusalem | |
A Childs Garden of Verses | |
Suits Me Mrs Vindaloo | |
An EType | |
7A Very Clever Plan | |
Sand | |
A City Devastated | |
My Friends the Stars | |
Vesna Krapotnik Catholic | |
The Beachcomber Affair | |
Saints You May Not Know | |
A Walk in the Black Forest | |
City of Sapphire | |
To Sir With Love | |
Any Views on That Mahatma Gandhi? | |
The Mysteries of Protestants | |
In the Cathedral | |
Mr Wonderful | |
The New Philosophy | |
In the Holy of Holies | |
The Eggman | |
A Note on the Author By the Same Author | |
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Common terms and phrases
abide bastard Beatles began Blessed Martin C.J. Pops called Carberry cathedral Catholic Cherie Amour Child’s Garden Chordettes Chris Christopher Clodagh Rodgers course Cullymore Dear Frankie Dolly Mixtures Dolores McCausland Dr Mukti Eggman emotion Ethel Baird eyes fact feelings fingers fucking Garden of Verses going gone Green Shield Stamp hair hand happened Happy Club head heard heaven Henry Thornton holy city hymn kind knew Lady Thornton laugh lips Little Tristram looked Lulu Marcus Otoyo Martin de Porres Mayflower McCool Meera Mike Corcoran Mood Indigo mother Muriel Day mystery never night Nook one’s Pandit Peggy Lee Peter Stuyvesant play Plaza Protestant remember Ruby Murray seemed singing sixties smiling soul Soul’s Ascent St Catherine’s staring Stevie Wonder talk tell there’s thing Thornton Manor thought told Tony Bennett town turned Twizzlers Vesna Krapotnik voice wanted Wattles Lane Wee Dimpie What’s White Room