Wednesday, August 30, 2017

A YEAR ANNIVERSARY: ST. PATRICK'S DAY Another Day in Dublin

       A year ago my book ST. PATRICK'S DAY Another Day in Dublin appeared.  It received notices in the following places:

                            What follows is a list BUT BUT if you scroll a little beyond it you will find the reason for it as I could not figure out how to arrange this post in another way


The Dublin Review of Books:
http://www.drb.ie/essays/time-gentlemen
THE HOLLINS CRITIC
https://www.hollins.edu/who-we-are/news-media/hollins-critic/
RAIN TAXI:
http://www.raintaxi.com/rain-taxi-review/print-edition/
THE AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/649685
THE IRISH ECHO:
 http://irishecho.com/2016/10/portrait-of-a-young-visitor/
CALL OF THE SIREN:
https://nickowchar.com/category/thomas-mcgonigle/
ZORAN ROSKO VACUUMPLAYER:
https://zorosko.blogspot.com/2017/03/thomas-mcgonigle-rollicking-pub-crawl.html
THE MILLBROOK INDEPENDENT:
 http://www.themillbrookindependent.com/content/literary-underground-crawl

       There were also blurbs from Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Julian Rios and James McCourt.  

                                        THREE

        But truth to tell:  there is a certain masochism in the publication of this listing so that while grateful for the attention, the book did not receive any newspaper reviews or reviews in magazines that often publish reviews of books.  Also, one is aware that most of these notices  are in publications of a very limited circulation, often not fully available in a digital format.  

                                       FOUR

         The Spanish writer  Julian Rios wrote in a letter: "Most of the bookshops now, everywhere, are display places for instant books. But literature needs time, lots of time. It's better for Saint Patrick's to be in The Hollins Critic, examined in detail, than stay a week at Waterstones like a fish out of water...

But the most important, solitaire is not only a card game, it is also the exact name for the real writer and its writing."

                                  FIVE


         So, one sits  as the calendar soon will click into September, October and on and on as  the book surely moves with diminished  yet real dignity into the near pre-historic time given how the world is constructed in this day... 

          I can cling to the thin thread that keeps me in the world but there seems to be a unraveling of possibility for the other books that await publication:  EMPTY AMERICAN LETTERS, NOTHING DOING, JUST LIKE THAT, FORGET THE FUTURE and HE IS ALMOST DEAD: John Wesley, painter.

        At one time editors and others of a certain literary inclination looked and even read for what had been over-looked to the purpose of seeing such into the public eye but that day is probably long gone yet it is one of the tiny strands of illusion one tries to keep in the composition of the thread tying an author to the world...



2 comments:

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Thomas McGonigle said...

this is an example of the predators out there who prey upon....