Shortlisted for the 2008 Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction.
The novel's prologue won the biggest prize in the world for a single short story - the BBC National Short Story Prize.
"Sheer comic brilliance" - The Times
"The best comic novel I've ever read" - Tommy Tiernan
"Could be the finest comic novel since Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman" - The Sunday Tribune
My first novel, of which I am very fond. The adventures of teenage twin sisters Juno & Juliet, in their first year away from home. Life, love and literature, in Galway and Tipperary.
"Like Roddy Doyle in an extremely good mood" - The Washington Post
"A modern, at times brilliantly ironic reworking of the classical fairytale, with nods to Shakespeare, Austen and Beckett." - Literary Review
"Hugely entertaining" - Vogue
Julian Gough wrote the words (and sang them) on four albums by Toasted Heretic in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Wikipedia have a good, independent overview of Toasted Heretic.
The very wonderful CDbaby will let you listen to bits of some early Toasted Heretic songs for free. If you like the songs, CDbaby will lovingly sell you Now In New Nostalgia Flavour, a luxury double-CD reissue of the first two albums, Songs for Swinging Celibates and Charm & Arrogance:
You can also check out, and even buy, early Toasted Heretic songs from iTunes
And if you do buy, or own, any Toasted Heretic albums, feel free to copy them for your poorer friends (but make the rich ones buy them).
Toasted Heretic were a fiercely independent, incredibly bolshy band from Galway, in the west of Ireland. They played what could probably best be called literary pop. Songs about sex, drugs, Nabokov, and the commodification of art.
They had a top ten hit in Ireland with "Galway and Los Angeles", a song about not kissing Sinead O'Connor. Toasted Heretic played widely in Ireland, as well as in London, Paris, and New York.
More Toasted Heretic stuff will gradually appear on this site, at moments when you least expect it. Check back every few months...