The Eggman's Apprentice

by Maurice Leitch

Orphaned at a cruelly young age, little Hugo Dinsmore is torn from his pampered life and plunged into the nightmare world of brutish country relatives, a world where his refined ways and small stature are a constant source of mockery and torment. Survival means learning to be sly, and Hugo soon finds his talents for retribution and petty thieving. His pure singing voice soon brings him to the attention of the Eggman, a much-feared local gangster who gets Hugo to perform for him and his cronies at their late-night poker sessions. Hugo becomes a well-dressed mascot, travelling with the Eggman and his enforcers in the back of a pink Cadillac. Gradually he breaks away from his old, wretched life, but as the Eggman's grip tightens and a criminal price must be paid for all the fine clothes, Hugo decides to make a spectacular and hazardous break for freedom.

345 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Seamus Duggan]

With an unreliable narrator who prefigures those of Pat McCabe in more than his Northern accent this is a wonderful trawl through the byways of the pre 'Troubles' Northern Ireland. Our hero, Hugo is an orphan whose life takes him from poverty into the kingdom of the Eggman, a gangster who is driven around in a large cadillac. Rural poverty and the corruption of power are both drawn but it is the voice of the aspiring megalomaniac Hugo that bewitches. Descriptions are often startling in their originality and clarity. Recommended - and I'll be looking out for other books by Maurice Leitch.

[John Ryan]

A Tin Drum riff with a similar gag to Haneke's white ribbon but about the rot in the Protestant north about to explore into the formal Troubles. Hugo is the analogue for the stunted growth of the Protestant farmer class in the atmosphere of a "lull between the wars". Is Hugo liberated from gangsterism at the end of the novel, or primed for a slicker, more mythological gangsterism with a cause? It does not feel like a happy ending in any case (the rot is across all levels of society and in every social protection barrier).

Doesn't have the greasy power of Silver's City, but the early chapters especially have a deepset melancholy that works really well. I think the end drops out of nowhere, but there's plenty of fun (and misery) along the way.

[abepa]

Every 10 pages man had to mention genitalia