Jammy Dodger

by Kevin Smith

Life is sweet for would-be bohemian Artie Conville. Safe at the helm of his subsidised magazine-with a cosy office paid for by the tax-payer-he's content to drift along quoting poetry, lingering over long lunches and flirting with the lovely Rosie McCann. The main thing is to keep the real world-of nine-to-five jobs, mortgages and political violence-at bay. So when his cushy number is threatened, Artie hatches a cunning plan to keep the funds coming in. But events quickly spiral out of control and before long he is up to his ears in a bizarre fraud. Can he avert disaster? Will he get the girl? With a cast of characters that includes a gun-toting playwright, a jealous police chief, a drunken actor and a giant white rabbit, this is a rich and riotous tale about coming-of-age in 1980s Belfast; a novel that is by turns darkly ironic and laugh-out-loud funny.

Genres: Fiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published August 16, 2012

Reviews

[Tim Roast · Rating 5 out of 5]

A couple of shysters create a fake poet to write for the provincial poetry magazine they run because their cushy jobs are at risk – that is what this book is about, with the end being the unravelling of their great masterplan.

They are essentially jammy dodgers, dodging real work, and instead using their work time to discuss biscuits such as the jammy dodger, which is the conversation that the book opens on.

In the first part of the book there were a few quotes from various poems and I was thinking “ah, it’s going to be one of those books”, but that was just setting the scene stuff and the story soon took hold. And as you might expect from a book where poetry plays a big part, the writing in places is poetic. For example the way the geography of Belfast is explained at one point, and also a chance encounter with a kingfisher whilst out walking with a girlfriend (We both saw the flash of blue-green – stood stock still – caught his intense singularity of purpose; a microsecond drawn out. Rosie turned to me in wonder, and in her eyes... etc.).

The book is funny too with the humour never being forced. There are big funny moments in the book, like when milk is first introduced to the story, and a funny radio interview.

It is set in late-1980s Belfast with its troubles and all, but that is never really brought to the forefront of the story and is kept in the background. As it says in book the narrator was using poetry as an escape from the “bomb-lit domain of chaos and violence” on the evening news.

And if you want an escape from real life too you’d do worse than spend your time reading this book.

[Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not 'the' Kevin Smith, the 'Clerks' and Silent Bob Kevin Smith although Amazon grouped this book in with the famous Kevin Smith. It's not. It's not even close.
Do you like random quotes of poetry you've probably never heard of let alone read? Do you enjoy stories about disgusting slobs one who keeps hundreds of empty milk cartons around to enter a contest on the back but someone stole his scissors a while ago. Do you enjoy badly written dialog between pretentious slobs getting drunk at a party? Do you want to know about lazy slobs one who moved when the mailed submissions for his poetry magazine, unread, filled the apartment (he later whines about the lack of material for the magazine which, is being supported by grants for the Arts. . . Then there was something about an armed intruder who was upset he wasn't published or something. I don't know. This is where I quit reading, I just couldn't take any more. The writing is bad not one of the cast has a single redeeming quality. Even the gunman read like dialog lifted from some bad Mob b-movie. It was truly one of the worst books I've ever tried to read. Two stars instead of one only because I got 26% into the book before giving up.

[Celeste · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extremely mediocre. Intellectual equivalent of chick lit to appeal to intellectuals and boys. What would we call that--bisexual lit? Some funny lines but too much ridiculous, over the top, farce for my liking. Though if you were a middle class young adult in Ireland in the 80s, it will probably speak to you more.

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think what helped me enjoy this so much is that I have lived in so much of the Belfast Kevin smith paints in the book. I wouldn't call it the funniest book but it is amusing and contains enough home truths to keep you entertained. To the people who reviewed it negatively on the back of literary pretentiousness, I think that is partly the intention - the Queen's school of english community is saturated with self-important literary pretentiousness and it seems funny/realistic every time the narrator pulls up a couple of lines of poetry in at any given chance.

[Anette · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/i...

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a slow read, and far too many descriptive passages