Book description
In Repeat This and You're Dead, celebrated dramatist Lawrence Russell
ventures for the first time into fiction. With gritty and unforgiving
realism, these "short short stories" cast a harsh eye on the
Ireland of the last half of this century, a country brutally divided
while fiercely loyal to an ambiguous past and an even more turbulent
future. With Russell's characteristic black humour and gleeful
sarcasm, the characters act out their fated lives on the public stage,
stories narrated as repeated gossip, told with the casual nonchalance
of a wanderer passing from room to room at a party to which he has not
been invited. Russell's unflinching mastery of irony refuses to allow
his voice to slip into sentimentality or charitable fondness. These
are the stories of untamed bullies, hapless farmers, unsteady
veterans, greedy nephews, stuffy uncles, grubby urchins, haunted
scavengers, ruthless money grubbers, clumsy terrorists, disenchanted
lovers, desperate mothers, estranged sons and exiled eccentrics of
every stripe--tales of the outcast and outraged. Russell's style
recalls the influences of Irish forefathers--the precision of Joyce,
the absurdity of Beckett, and the mysticism of Yeats. Russell's
Ireland is not only fist fights and fanaticism, it is also the
unimagined peace which occasionally resides in the hearts of the hopeful.
Lawrence Russell was born and raised in rural northern Ireland. He
came to Canada when he was sixteen. His drama has been performed
across Canada and the U. S. He teaches Writing and Film at the
University of Victoria, B. C.
