Breakfast on Pluto: Picador Collection

Breakfast on Pluto, Patrick McCabe's lyrical and haunting new novel, became a #1 bestseller in Ireland, stayed on the bestseller list for months, and was nominated for the Booker Prize, one of the world's most prestigious literary awards. With wonderful delicacy and subtle insight and intimation, McCabe creates Mr. Patrick "Pussy" Braden, the enduringly and endearingly hopeful hero(ine) whose gutsy survival and yearning quest for love resonate in and drive the glimmering, agonizing narrative in which the troubles are a distant and immediate echo and refrain. Twenty years ago, her ladyship escaped her hometown of Tyreelin, Ireland, fleeing her foster mother Whiskers (prodigious Guinness-guzzler, human chimney) and her mad household, to begin a new life in London. There, in blousey tops and satin miniskirts, she plies her trade, often risking life and limb amongst the flotsam and jetsam that fill the bars of Piccadilly Circus. But suave businessmen and lonely old women are not the only dangers that threaten Pussy. It is the 1970's and fear haunts the streets of London and Belfast as the critical mass of history builds up, and Pussy is inevitably drawn into a maelstrom of violence and tragedy destined to blow his fragile soul asunder. Brilliant, startling, profound and soaring, Breakfast on Pluto combines light and dark, laughter and pain, with such sensitivity, directness and restraint that the dramatic impact reverberates in our minds and hearts long after the initial impression.

"[McCabe is] one of the most brilliant writers ever to come out of Ireland." — San Francisco Chronicle
"[A] careening picaresque...antic debauch and sudden terror. Pussy's voice throughout is delightfully unhinged in its match of high camp and the poetic pretensions of the Irish barfly." — The New Yorker
"A screamingly funny look at a deadly reality." — Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"A surreal romp...An unsettling claustrophobic novel in which McCabe imaginatively distills Northern Ireland's public horrors as he compels us to inhabit Patrick Braden's private nightmare." — Boston Globe
"An unsparing account of Irish realities. [A] moving, brilliantly told tale...full of human comedy and cruelty." — Washington Post Book World
"Breakfast on Pluto may be the most successful book yet to be born out of the violence [in Northern Ireland]. . . . Stunning originality." — New York Times Book Review
"McCabe certainly has a talent for creating memorable characters who are worth spending some time with, warts and all." — Library Journal
"The very funny parts of the book ironically emphasize the ongoing horror of Ireland's religious wars. In his artful novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, McCabe has created an unforgettable heroine." — Booklist
"By turns hilarious and pitiably lonely, Patrick ["Pussy"] Braden is an unforgettable hero." — Newsweek