Leaves for the Burning
Swan River Press:
Dublin: 2020
First printing, Hardcover, Limited, New in dust jacket with ephemera,
243 pp.
Cover artwork by: Meggan Kehrli
Replete with postcard, photo and facsimile signature plate. “Lucian Brewse Burke, a middle-aged public servant, works in a shabby county council sub-office in the bleak Irish midlands, mired in Kafkaesque bureaucracy and petty skirmishes with locals. Upon the arrival of an old university friend on his way to Yeats’s funeral, things turn toward the eccentric. They embark on a days-long, cross-country spree brimming with booze-fueled nostalgia. To the accompaniment of juke boxes blaring a reminder of the steady of Americanisation of Europe, we see public-houses thronged with saints, senators, and sinners; while outside old stone crumbles and thin rain drifts down on an ancient country-side. Despite its melancholy pinings for wasted youth, this mid-century portrait of Ireland is rich in grotesque humour and savage absurdity. Leaves for the Burning won Denmark’s Best European Novel award in 1952.” #66659
Price: $40.00