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liberrydude's review against another edition
2.0
Set in Northern Ireland in the 1990's before the peace this tale of Dan Starkey is full of violence but it's also very funny at times. Starkey is a journalist who is both immature and an alcoholic. His sense of humor is pretty insane. It starts out slowly with some womanizing by a self admitted loyal guy and the next thing you know there are bodies every where and it's not clear who is killing and why. Starkey is also interviewing with an American journalist, the only black guy in Belfast it seems, a candidate for prime minister who was a former bomber. Starkey is on the run from the police, gangsters, the IRA, and the Ulster Defence League. It's been made into a movie and this is the first in the series. The cover is enough of an enticement to read it but you are left wandering sometimes with the cultural idioms and slang.
simonrtaylor's review against another edition
4.0
Set in pre-Good Friday Northern Ireland, Divorcing Jack is a darkly comic crime adventure starring newspaper columnist Dan Starkey. When he kisses a girl at a house party, he's given 24 hours to move out by his wife. Soon, the girl is dead and her last words, "Divorce Jack", are all Starkey has to exonerate himself from the outlaws and lawmen who are after him.
The setting is critical to the story and provides a depth to everything and everyone. Nobody can live amid the Troubles unblemished. Everything has a subtext and Bateman accessibly and authentically brings Northern Ireland's recent history to the fore.
Perhaps it was the lackadaisical attitude of Starkey, but there was no urgency to anything. He could be quite droll and do what he could, but there was little in the way of reacting very much to anything. Other than a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde moment with Lee (which seemed abrupt and infeasible), the lead seems surprisingly disinvested. As a result, I wasn't gripped by the book the way I expected to be.
The plot moves at a steady pace. You never get bored, and the humour, though subtle, is never far away. The resolution comes about with relative believability, despite how impossible it seems from the outset. Although what is a rather simple story has few major twists, the writing ensures you coast rather than drag your way through.
A witty debut, much bolstered by its rich setting, and an all round decent story. I might not be rushing for the sequel, but I'll get to it.
The setting is critical to the story and provides a depth to everything and everyone. Nobody can live amid the Troubles unblemished. Everything has a subtext and Bateman accessibly and authentically brings Northern Ireland's recent history to the fore.
Perhaps it was the lackadaisical attitude of Starkey, but there was no urgency to anything. He could be quite droll and do what he could, but there was little in the way of reacting very much to anything. Other than a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde moment with Lee (which seemed abrupt and infeasible), the lead seems surprisingly disinvested. As a result, I wasn't gripped by the book the way I expected to be.
The plot moves at a steady pace. You never get bored, and the humour, though subtle, is never far away. The resolution comes about with relative believability, despite how impossible it seems from the outset. Although what is a rather simple story has few major twists, the writing ensures you coast rather than drag your way through.
A witty debut, much bolstered by its rich setting, and an all round decent story. I might not be rushing for the sequel, but I'll get to it.
wayward's review against another edition
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
hmcc08's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
m_e_d_b_'s review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
joolio's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
nwhyte's review against another edition
4.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2508355.html
I picked this up at a Brussels literary event last year, at which Bateman himself spoke and autographed a couple of his works for me. I had previously read a couple of his thrillers set in Belfast, usually involving struggling journalists who get into political and criminal difficulties, though I don't think I had looked at any of them this century. Divorcing Jack is more political, but it is a slightly different politics to our time line, set in an alternate 1995 where the Alliance Party is about to win the elections and take power. (I read this bit with particular interest because in our timeline, the real Alliance Party's central Director of Elections in 1995 was, er, me; and we were struggling to hit the 6.5% we got in 1996, never mind win outright. A significant subplot revolves around the party's candidate for North Belfast, who in 1995-96, in our timeline, was, again, me; but Bateman's fictional McGarry had a much more successful political career than I did.)
As with the other Bateman novels I've read, the narrator is a journalist down on his luck. Here, his marriage is on the rocks, two other women appear on the scene, and he unleashes a criminal scandal which threatens to rock the political world to its foundations. Bateman's Northern Ireland is a small world. There is only one taxi driver in the whole of Belfast, apparently. The least credible element of this alternate Northern Ireland is that everyone at the top level of politics has known each other practically from childhood, and that the battles of young love are still being fought a decade or two later, along with all the other political battles. I do actually know of a couple of countries where this is a decent explanation of a lot of the political dynamics; but Northern Ireland, given its internal division and also relative permeability to outside influences, is not one of them.
But I'm far enough away in time and (usually) space to appreciate that not every detail of the fictional politics of Bateman's Northern Ireland needs to be convincing to make it an entertaining book; and it is an entertaining book - in particular, he catches the caustic Belfast wit very well, also showing how it can link to a cynical worldview where scepticism even of the apparently heroic is always justified. It's not a terribly attractive approach, but at least it means that, by assuming the worst in advance, you are more likely to get pleasant surprises than unpleasant surprises.
It's also striking, to a visitor from the 21st century, how much the plot of this book set in 1995 depends on old technology - the McGuffin is a cassette tape of which there is only one copy; when your spouse goes missing you have to call round all imaginable relatives and friends and ask if they know where your loved one is, because nobody has a mobile phone.
Anyway, it's of its time, but it brought me back to places which were very important to me once, and showed them to me from a different angle and in a different light. I don't know how well it would be received outside Northern Ireland - the humour is very local - and I'm not even sure how well it was received here - rather too close to the bone in some cases. But I liked it.
I picked this up at a Brussels literary event last year, at which Bateman himself spoke and autographed a couple of his works for me. I had previously read a couple of his thrillers set in Belfast, usually involving struggling journalists who get into political and criminal difficulties, though I don't think I had looked at any of them this century. Divorcing Jack is more political, but it is a slightly different politics to our time line, set in an alternate 1995 where the Alliance Party is about to win the elections and take power. (I read this bit with particular interest because in our timeline, the real Alliance Party's central Director of Elections in 1995 was, er, me; and we were struggling to hit the 6.5% we got in 1996, never mind win outright. A significant subplot revolves around the party's candidate for North Belfast, who in 1995-96, in our timeline, was, again, me; but Bateman's fictional McGarry had a much more successful political career than I did.)
As with the other Bateman novels I've read, the narrator is a journalist down on his luck. Here, his marriage is on the rocks, two other women appear on the scene, and he unleashes a criminal scandal which threatens to rock the political world to its foundations. Bateman's Northern Ireland is a small world. There is only one taxi driver in the whole of Belfast, apparently. The least credible element of this alternate Northern Ireland is that everyone at the top level of politics has known each other practically from childhood, and that the battles of young love are still being fought a decade or two later, along with all the other political battles. I do actually know of a couple of countries where this is a decent explanation of a lot of the political dynamics; but Northern Ireland, given its internal division and also relative permeability to outside influences, is not one of them.
But I'm far enough away in time and (usually) space to appreciate that not every detail of the fictional politics of Bateman's Northern Ireland needs to be convincing to make it an entertaining book; and it is an entertaining book - in particular, he catches the caustic Belfast wit very well, also showing how it can link to a cynical worldview where scepticism even of the apparently heroic is always justified. It's not a terribly attractive approach, but at least it means that, by assuming the worst in advance, you are more likely to get pleasant surprises than unpleasant surprises.
It's also striking, to a visitor from the 21st century, how much the plot of this book set in 1995 depends on old technology - the McGuffin is a cassette tape of which there is only one copy; when your spouse goes missing you have to call round all imaginable relatives and friends and ask if they know where your loved one is, because nobody has a mobile phone.
Anyway, it's of its time, but it brought me back to places which were very important to me once, and showed them to me from a different angle and in a different light. I don't know how well it would be received outside Northern Ireland - the humour is very local - and I'm not even sure how well it was received here - rather too close to the bone in some cases. But I liked it.
edavis409's review
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
muninnherself's review
3.0
I read this when it first came out - and I remember thinking it doesn't quite live up to the cover, which is rather excellent.
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