Breakfast On Pluto

The book has some marvels which I didn’t experience to the fullest for reasons that I had been trying to locate in the dark since I finished reading it. Did I enjoy it? Sure. However, I feel that I did not get to the core of it. I’ve been trying to understand it deeper than the realization that the book is “simply” about a young transvestite hooker searching for love and consumed by vengeful plots against his father who never wanted him. I could sense his conflicts and escapades (including his impersonations of 60s British divas and his search for his identity) as being metaphors to the troubled Ireland which was the in backdrop. Or, maybe, there isn’t a need to search for the hidden erudition of the novel at all. With the latter case, I can say the book is just a few notches short of wonderful, if only for the style – hodgepodge of surreal ruminations, distorted flash backs and images of violence.

This novel (Breakfast on Pluto by Patrick McCabe) was in the 1998 Booker Prize Short List. I plan to watch the 2006 film adaptation, which was directed by Neil Jordan, in the future.
{February 22, 2009}