Overview

With his first volume of his personal chronicle, Light Years, published to great acclaim in 2002, Augustus Young came to attention as an Irish writer outside the usual conventions, well able to exploit his heritage but not bound by it. His mastery of prose style, humour and ability to adduce within his writing an astonishing compass of material is the basis of his originality. Storytime continues his perceptions of his family, the Ireland of his experience and imaginings, and the literary marketplace. Against this is set the wider culture which provides him with a viewpoint for understanding both himself and the world he lives and has lived in. Storytime is humourously satirical, entertaining, but also acutely reflective about a culture in transition and the possibilities of survival. It is ultimately a work, it becomes clear, written as a way of fending off fear of death. In the end, Augustus's story is about two deaths, that of a culture and his own. That neither is conclusive suggests that for the author, the telling of stories ensures transition into an afterlife. Naturally, he finds this reassuring both for the culture and himself.

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9781904027379

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"""It might be thought we could do without another account of an Irish childhood and a wet-behind-the-ears arrival in London, but we couldn't do without this one... He is in fact a relishably odd fish...'Memories aren't true. But you can be true to them.' This comes near the end and defines the half-heard strain of stubborn honourableness that holds together the humourous melancholy of this memorable book. P.J. Kavanagh, The Spectator; Young is like Orwell's Henry Miller, getting on with his own life while momentous events surge on beyond his control...At one point Young is game enough to admit that 'poetry is a state of panic where some poor souls suffer for a time before they go to repose', but he has hardly turned his back on poetry in writing this book, which is highly poetic in its subjectivity, in its fine dissection of feeling, in its refusal to simplify people and so present them as 'characters'. I shall treasure Young's book... Crispin Jackson, The Literary Review; I have not laughed so much since my first reading of The Third Policeman... This book is an oddity, but a beautiful oddity, which goes from high comedy to deep pathos in the flick of a semi-colon. The final impression is of a haunting sadness, as in all the best comic writing. Alannah Hopkin, The Irish Times; Augustus Young... is a highly sophisticated writer and a very funny one. If there is any justice in the world, this book ought to become classic. What makes it so successful is that it is all done with smoke and mirrors, and it is done superbly. David McLaurin, The Tablet"""

It might be thought we could do without another account of an Irish childhood and a wet-behind-the-ears arrival in London, but we couldn't do without this one... He is in fact a relishably odd fish...'Memories aren't true. But you can be true to them.' This comes near the end and defines the half-heard strain of stubborn honourableness that holds together the humourous melancholy of this memorable book. P.J. Kavanagh, The Spectator; Young is like Orwell's Henry Miller, getting on with his own life while momentous events surge on beyond his control...At one point Young is game enough to admit that 'poetry is a state of panic where some poor souls suffer for a time before they go to repose', but he has hardly turned his back on poetry in writing this book, which is highly poetic in its subjectivity, in its fine dissection of feeling, in its refusal to simplify people and so present them as 'characters'. I shall treasure Young's book... Crispin Jackson, The Literary Review; I have not laughed so much since my first reading of The Third Policeman... This book is an oddity, but a beautiful oddity, which goes from high comedy to deep pathos in the flick of a semi-colon. The final impression is of a haunting sadness, as in all the best comic writing. Alannah Hopkin, The Irish Times; Augustus Young... is a highly sophisticated writer and a very funny one. If there is any justice in the world, this book ought to become classic. What makes it so successful is that it is all done with smoke and mirrors, and it is done superbly. David McLaurin, The Tablet

Author Information

Augustus Young was born in Cork, Ireland in 1943 and educated at the universities of Cork, Dundee and London. As an epidemiologist he has published many scientific papers and contributed to textbooks. He has also published seven volumes of poetry. His work has appeared in London Magazine, Arete, Cyphers, Books Ireland, Sniper Logic and The Kinsale Anthology.

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