18 Comments
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Caroline Osella's avatar

Rabelaisian revival starts here! The world is already ready, but doesn't realise that's where it's gone.

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Nick Winney's avatar

One of the most bizarre and hilariously inventive tales I've read in a while...and that is saying something in these circles! Very much enjoying Blood in the Yolk so far...I think this is my favourite so far!😎

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A.P. Murphy's avatar

Thank you very much indeed Nick, that's in fact the first feedback of any kind I've had on that story and I'm very pleased you enjoyed it!

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Nick Winney's avatar

whaaaa?

It's great! The way it jumps from 1600s to modern day… mindspinning and then… an immortal man/bird mutant protector of the victims of the T&F… just wild imagination. that's what its all about. and your filthy vernacular and irish brogue is spot on too…little touches that add authenticity. hit all my spots… had to read it straight through 😎

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A.P. Murphy's avatar

Really appreciate that, Nick. I'd be keen to ask you to beta-read a collection that I'm preparing of that type of story, strange-parodic-black-comedy, under the Fionn Flynn penname.

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Nick Winney's avatar

i would be honoured to do so!

im not always the quickest to reply depending whats going on IRL if u have deadlines but I will deffo do it. im a big fan of your work, so for you to ask my opinion... thats a huge compliments.

so just foofledoc me and i can drop comments into it.

googledoc even 😁

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A.P. Murphy's avatar

That's really good of you, Nick. I'll drop a foofledoc or more likely email you over the weekend, depending on how a little chat goes with an editor tomorrow. There's no particular deadline as yet. Cheers, and thanks again for your kind words, means a lot as I'm also a great fan of your work.

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Nick Winney's avatar

🤩

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Parker McCoy's avatar

I love the language and the ridiculousness here. Ridiculous things are everywhere today and all through the past. It's always good for a laugh, although the true tarring and feathering was not laughable. I am sure. I've also read the excerpt for the Tasteless Death of Lance Green by Sean Thomas McDonnell, and I am really hoping for a death worse than tar and feathering for him. This looks like one great collection.

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A.P. Murphy's avatar

Thanks so much Parker, I very much hope you will enjoy it!

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Elie Lichtschein's avatar

This is so interesting and f-ed up!! Thank you for sharing this. A great read

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A.P. Murphy's avatar

Thanks so much Elie, I hope you’ll enjoy reading the complete collection!

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Ken Flyingheart's avatar

I love this, Murph. Every part of it. This is everything a truly horrific story should be and I just know you stuck the landing on this one in spectacular fashion. Can't wait to read it!

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A.P. Murphy's avatar

Thank you so much Ken, I really hope you enjoy it! It takes a few swings through ribald comedy then uncanny horror then epic poetry, so it's a wild ride.

In any case I can wholeheartedly recommend the book just for the quality of the other stories contained in it.

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Nico Harlakenden's avatar

Classic Murphy: never lets a reader walk away without learning something 😁

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A.P. Murphy's avatar

Definitely has to be one of the delights of historical fiction that you pick up little nuggets of what it was like to live in other times, from mental attitudes to physical sensations. I’m working on leaving all the research in the deep background of the story but then I feel like I should write a companion essay explaining it all…

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Caroline Osella's avatar

This was so good, thanks. We're not gonna say Joycean, because, well, we're just not, are we? But the use of language here has me prickling and horripilating in ways familiar but all-too rare.

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A.P. Murphy's avatar

I’m not against Joycean at all, these days I listen to Finnegans Wake as I sleep. Though in fact I’m coming at the style from Brian O’Nolan and early Samuel Beckett, to name two such key Irish goobers and fly-be-nights.

The origin of the style is really in the medieval monks who did such wild epics as The Lament of Mad Sweeney or the Cu Chulainn tales. Also Rabelais and so on…

But Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy is a killer reference point too.

Thanks for these kind words Caro, in fact all this exuberant caution-to-the-wind stuff is now being hived off onto another author identity, so I can keep Murphy clear for all the solemn gobshite.

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