Sunday Tribune Books of the Year - Jude: Level 1

Back in Ireland, the Sunday Tribune just picked its books of the year.

I was INTENSELY pleased to see Jude: Level 1 among the (eight) Irish fiction titles. Especially when they called my darling little book "the picaresque bastard lovechild of Flann O'Brien and Matt Groening".

Anyway, here's what they said in full:

"Jude: Level 1

Julian Gough (Old Street Publishing)

Gough's novel is like the picaresque bastard lovechild of Flann O'Brien and Matt Groening, and yet is all Julian Gough. Possibly the finest comic novel to come out of Ireland since At Swim Two Birds, it recounts the story of Jude, an orphan, as he wanders through Ireland in a quest to find his true love and uncover the secret behind his parentage. Along the way he gains an erectile nose, and a startling resemblance to Leonardo Di Caprio. Each absurd episode is constructed meticulously, and is delivered with the kind of momentum which should collapse in on itself, and amazingly manages to ascend even greater heights of hilarity. Gough makes it look deceptively easy, with an instinctive sense of timing, and a razor-sharp and subversive intellect."

 The entire list can be found here...