To call Roddy Doyle’s new book, BRILLIANT (Macmillan) brilliant, is an understatement.
Two Dublin kids, brother and sister, Gloria and Raymond, aka Rayzer, are delighted their Uncle Ben is coming to live with them, but the reason for his moving in is devastating.
The children overhear their Grandmother say that there’s a depression all over Ireland and that the Black Dog is after Dublin’s funny bone.
The siblings decide to track this Black Dog down and rescue the town’s funny bone from its jaws.
A nocturnal mission is hurriedly knocked-up and the duo embark into the dark to cry havoc and unleash war on the Dog whose bite is far worse than its bark.
As if the dark Dublin streets are not daks packing enough, an early encounter with Ernie O’Driscoll, a disembodied head and voice is the stuff of smalls soiling, and so it is.
Ernie is well known all along the street. “If you don’t do your homework you’ll end up like Ernie O’Driscoll.”
But his hanging upside down like a bat and proclaiming he was a vampire is red-hot, brand-new news.
Turns out his becoming a vampire was due to the recession that had brought on the depression – “me Ma told me to get a job. We make our own jobs. And I get to stay in bed all day.”
This trio of Black Dog slayers are soon joined by a crusade of children all hunting the black dog on behalf of their parents.
The kids are encouraged by a pair of seagulls, to whom the book is dedicated. The seagulls form a screech chorus cum cheer squad to the kids’ campaign.
The adventure has its zenith in the Dublin zoo with a series of Dr. Doolittle moments featuring a host of talking animals.
The kids discover that the Black Dog abhors the word Brilliant and utter a barrage of the derogatory at the beast, blasting Dublin’s funny bone from it’s slavering jaws.
BRILLIANT is a bright and shining tale of collective kid power, a magical and marvellous quest full of character and incident.
Anatomically, the humerus may not be the funny bone, but the glorious message of BRILLIANT is that a healthy sense of humour is paramount in keeping the Black Dog at bay.