Christmas Day

A tragicomedy in verse which pits the joys of friendship and humour against the madness and melancholy of the festive season, by the much-celebrated Irish poet, Paul Durcan.

[A]n intimate soul-searching, by turns painful and savagely funny

He is a master of minor tragedies and melancholy, self-mocking humour... It is a beautiful, poignant and wry piece of writing. The firm yet hesitant friendship between these two men is the most genuine note of goodwill you could come across in a whole month of Christmases

Like all first-class comedians, he is deadly serious

Peter Robb (Author) Peter Robb is an Australian author. He was born in the Toorak, Melbourne in 1946 and has lived in Australia, New Zealand, Italy and Brazil. His first book, Midnight in Sicily, won the Victorian Premier's Literary Prize for non-fiction in 1997. 
His second book, M, a biography of the Italian artist Caravaggio, provoked controversy on its publication in Britain in 2000. A Death in Brazil, his fourth novel, was named The Age's non-fiction book of the year for 2004. He has taught at the University of Melbourne, the University of Oulu in Finland and the Instituto Universitario Orientale in Naples. Paul Durcan (Author) Paul Durcan was born in Dublin in 1944. His first book, Endsville (1967), has been followed by more than twenty others, including The Berlin Wall Café (a Poetry Book Society Choice in 1985), Daddy, Daddy (winner of the Whitbread Award for Poetry in 1990), Crazy About Women (1991), A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems (1993), Give Me Your Hand (1994), Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil (1999), The Art of Life (2004), The Laughter of Mothers (2007), Life is a Dream: 40 Years Reading Poems 1967–2007 (2009), Praise in Which I Live and Move and Have My Being (2012), and The Days of Surprise (2015). In 2001 Paul Durcan received a Cholmondeley Award. He was Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2004 to 2007. He was conferred with a DLitt by Trinity College Dublin in 2009 and by University College Dublin in 2011. In 2014 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Irish Book Award. He is a member of Aosdána.

For most of us Christmas is the season of huge helpings of good food, good drink, and with luck, good cheer, as the rituals of cracker-pulling, present-giving and happy or sulphurous family reunions fizzle and bang through the long afternoon. 
 
For anyone who has ever had too much of it, or felt out of it, or wanted to be out of it, or even succeeded in being out of it then been unexpectedly rescued by a good friend, this book-length poem contains a lifeline of humour and sanity in a world run seasonally mad. 
 
It is a funny, subversive, melancholy, self-mocking conversation between two men - Paul and Frank - in the top storey flat of a Dublin apartment block; a Stations of Christmas under the influence of "woman-hunger". Once read, Christmas Day itself will never be the same again. 
 
The volume also contains a second new work, "A Goose in the Frost", a tribute to Seamus Heaney on winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Peter Robb

One of the greatest charms of Robb's book is his evident delight in southern Italy, particularly its food, which is recorded with such intensity of memory that one can almost taste it... As an introduction to post-war Italy, to the country as well as its politics, it can have few equals

Robb writes brilliantly about the cycle of violence in southern Italy. This unclassifiable book melds politics, the mafia, travel, autobiography and serious cooking

I love this book. It left me in a sweet and sour mood of exultation, grief, despair and hope which lasted for many days

One of the finest books on the Italian south. [Peter Robb's] analysis is as riveting in its commentary on modern Sicilian life as The Leopard was to an earlier generation

Peter Robb manages to celebrate the literature, art, manners and food of an entire region. His book is a masterpiece of elegant, sceptical enquiry and a pleasure to read

In a short review it is possible only to hint at the richness, vitality and the intellectual and narrative verve of the book...a distinctive and powerful work

I cannot recommend a better book to anyone interested in Italy in general, the crossroad of cultures which is the south of Italy, in the phenomenon of the mafia and its international intrigues, in literature and in food... Midnight in Sicily is a triumph

A wonderful book and an outstanding debut

No recent book on Sicily...gives so masterly a picture of Sicilian life in all its contradictory richness

An expert blend of travel, food, crime and politics which brings contemporary Sicily vividly to life

Peter Robb's journey into the dark heart of Sicily uses history, painting, literature and food to shed light on southern Italy's legacy of political corruption and violent crime. Taking the trial of seven-times Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, for alleged Mafia involvement as its starting point, Midnight in Sicily combines a searching investigation with an exuberant, sensual appreciation of this beautiful and bewildering island.

Peter Robb

Praise for Midnight in Sicily

One of the greatest charms of Robb's book is his evident delight in southern Italy, particularly its food, which is recorded with such intensity of memory that one can almost taste it... As an introduction to post-w ...

Robb writes brilliantly about the cycle of violence in southern Italy. This unclassifiable book melds politics, the mafia, travel, autobiography and serious cooking

I love this book. It left me in a sweet and sour mood of exultation, grief, despair and hope which lasted for many days

One of the greatest charms of Robb's book is his evident delight in southern Italy, particularly its food, which is recorded with such intensity of memory that one can almost taste it... As an introduction to post-w ...

Robb writes brilliantly about the cycle of violence in southern Italy. This unclassifiable book melds politics, the mafia, travel, autobiography and serious cooking

I love this book. It left me in a sweet and sour mood of exultation, grief, despair and hope which lasted for many days

One of the greatest charms of Robb's book is his evident delight in southern Italy, particularly its food, which is recorded with such intensity of memory that one can almost taste it... As an introduction to post-w ...

Robb writes brilliantly about the cycle of violence in southern Italy. This unclassifiable book melds politics, the mafia, travel, autobiography and serious cooking

I love this book. It left me in a sweet and sour mood of exultation, grief, despair and hope which lasted for many days

Books by Peter Robb

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