'Mondo Desperado': A serial novel

March 27, 2000
Web posted at: 5:48 p.m. EST (2248 GMT)

Review by Helyn Trickey

(CNN) -- The fictional Irish village of Barntrosna is, at first impression, a drowsy, lemonade-drinking town. At night, we are assured, the full, glowing moon casts its light over hearty, contented folk who sleep snug in their beds with the covers pulled up to their noses.

It wouldn't be a bad town to live in, to work in, even to retire in -- if the Devil himself had not been ordained in the village church. It would be a nice place to raise your kids if it weren't for that unfortunate incident with the cherubic child down the street, Declan Coyingham. Yes, and we hear ol' Larry Bunyan's once-prim wife is now a hard-drinking sex machine at the Go-Go Lounge. Barntrosna may indeed be the center of evil. Or it might just be your average Irish village.

Patrick McCabe's latest work, "Mondo Desperado: A Serial Novel" (Harpercollins), introduces us to an odd collection of characters, all of them twisted, grotesque and idiosyncratic. The short stories that make up the book are independent of one another, but with one common denominator -- Barntrosna.

McCabe explores the jealousy, insecurity and mistrust we all feel, but his characters take these emotions to the extreme. We learn about jealousy from the Bishop of Barntrosna in "I Ordained the Devil." We explore childhood envy in "The Bursted Priest."

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Excerpt: Tragic chain of events set off in 'Mondo Desperado'

And McCabe's Larry Bunyan is convincing as a suspicious, hot-under-the-collar husband in "Hot Nights at the Go-Go Lounge." Bunyan begins his tale of lust and loss with these words:

"It's hard to figure out how in a small town like this a mature woman of twenty-eight years could get herself mixed up with a bunch of deadbeat swingers, but that is exactly what happened to Cora Bunyan and I should know because she was my wife."

Soon, we see Bunyan's frothy mistrust is not well-founded. He slowly obsesses about his wife's "night life" until he is consumed with her dreamed-up infidelities, her bogus bouts with booze.

"As I sat there in the corner banquette I had it all figured out, and for the first time saw the game my so-called 'beloved wife' was playing. A game called 'Larry Bunyan -- sucker!'"

Cora is innocently cleaning the kitchen, clad in apron and rubber gloves, when Larry finally confronts her. She laughs at his outrageous accusations, but Bunyan is not swayed. His marriage is deflated before our eyes.

We know McCabe from his past works, including "The Butcher Boy" and "Breakfast on Pluto." Twice he has landed on Booker Prize finalist lists. McCabe's earlier literary endeavors have transported us to a dark, devastated Ireland, but his latest novel is more quirky than dire.

"Mondo Desperado" toys with the reader. McCabe flexes his literary muscles, penning the entire work in the fictional persona of Phildy Hackball, using an outrageous and overblown pulp fiction style. But McCabe is an immensely entertaining writer with an imagination that at once makes you cringe and cackle with glee.

Does the "air-slicing killing machine from Hong Kong" (otherwise known as Bruce Lee) really frequent the Red Lotus Restaurant? Helmet-Head McGeough is convinced of it, and he details his meeting with the Kung Fu king in "My Friend Bruce Lee."

Does Dympna Wrigley really poison her foul-mouthed mother? She wonders about the woman's fate as she restlessly prostitutes herself on cold city streets in "The Luck of Dympna Wrigley."

McCabe is a fresh, funny and irreverent voice, and while we giggle and cluck at his characters' foibles, we wonder if the fictional Barntrosna isn't really our own hometown in disguise.

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