"Mr. McCabe is the lodestone of new Irish fiction, a writer capable of integrating the history and traditions of his country and its literature with the mad whirl of politics and pop culture." --Wall Street Journal

"The book and narration are so powerful that all I want afterward is complete silence. It's as if it were only proper and fitting that I and the world around me should pause and hold our breath for a moment, partly out of respect, partly out of a need to reorient. . . . Part of the splendor is listening to McCabe himself" --Philadelphia Inquirer

"[McCabe is] one of the most brilliant writers ever to come out of Ireland." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Distressing and hilarious, satirical and bathetic, over the top and understated, Breakfast on Pluto conveys in the manner of Roy Lichtenstein, matter that wouldn't be out of place in the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch. Patrick McCabe has ventured once again into transgressive territory, charting in a deceptively throwaway, highly nuanced manner an orphaned consciousness saturating itself with the slurry of international pop culture as an antidote to lethal local conditions..Patrick McCabe [is] one of the more challenging and intriguing imaginations in Irish fiction today." --Irish Times

Patrick McCabe, already acclaimed as one of the most gifted Irish novelist writing today, is increasingly being recognized internationally as a writer of true literary stature, with an ever-growing popular readership.

Breakfast on Pluto, his lyrical and haunting new novel, became a number one bestseller in Ireland, stayed on the bestseller list for months, and was nominated for the Booker Prize, one of the world's most prestigious literary awards. It was the sole Irish novel to be so honored, and McCabe is that rare writer who has had his work twice nominated, having been previously selected in 1992 for his classic novel The Butcher Boy, which won the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Irish Literature Prize, was recently released as a major motion picture, and joined Breakfast on Pluto on the Irish bestseller lists.

With wonderful delicacy and subtle insight and intimation, McCabe creates Mr. Patrick "Pussy" Braden, the enduringly and endearingly hopeful hero(ine) whose gutty survival and yearning quest for love resonate in and drive the glimmering, agonizing narrative in which the Troubles are a distant and immediate echo and refrain.

As Breakfast on Pluto opens, her ladyship, resplendent in housecoat and head scarf, reclines in Kilburn, London, writing her story for the elusive psychiatrist Dr. Terence, paring her fingernails as she reawakens the truth behind her life and the chaos of long-ago days in a city filled with hatred. Twenty years ago, she escaped her hometown of Tyreelin, Ireland, fleeing her foster mother, Whisker--prodigious Guinness-guzzler, human chimney--and her mad household (endless doorstep babas!), to begin a new life in London. There, in blousey tops and satin miniskirts, she plies her trade, often risking life and limb among the flotsam and jetsam who fill the bars of Piccadilly Circus ("You want love? That what you want, orphaned boy without a home? Then die for it! Die! Die, sweet Irish!"). But suave businessmen and lonely old women are not the only dangers that threaten Pussy's existence. It is the 1970s, and fear haunts the streets of London and Belfast as the critical mass of history builds up, and Pussy is inevitably drawn into a maelstrom of violence and tragedy destined to blow his fragile soul asunder.

Brilliant, startling, profound, and soaring, Breakfast on Pluto combines lightness and darkness, laughter and pain, with such sensitivity, directness, and restraint that the dramatic impact reverberates in our minds and hearts long, long after the initial impression.

About the Author: Patrick McCabe was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland in 1955. He has published four other adult novels, Music On Clinton Street (1986), Carn (1989), The Butcher Boy (1992), and The Dead School (1995). He co-wrote with director Neil Jordan the screenplay for The Butcher Boy, and is finishing a collection of stories.

Written & performed by Patrick McCabe - Unabridged Fiction - 4 CASSETTES - 6 hours

Publisher, Harper Audio (1999)

List $25.00