Milligan and Murphy
.png "Milligan and Murphy by Jim Murdoch")
Milligan and Murphy
Jim Murdoch
Fandango Virtual (11 November 2011)
ISBN 978-0-9550636-6-4
Paperback: 180 pages
12.8 x 19.8 x 1.4 cm
There are no reasons for unreasonable things. So the protagonists of this novel are told having found themselves setting out on an adventure that they really didn't plan. Like many people, Murdoch has always had a great affection for the two lead characters in Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Have you ever wondered what Didi and Gogo were like when they were young and what led them to end up waiting for a man who would most likely never turn up? That's basically the premise Murdoch set out to explore in Milligan and Murphy but that was not the question he finally answered.
Milligan and Murphy are not Didi and Gogo, nor are they Mercier and Camier, Beckett's less-well-known "pseudo-couple"—they are very much themselves—but after an unexpected encounter on the road out of the town with an old man who has decided that searching for someone that will never be found is better than waiting for someone who will never turn up, they suddenly find themselves with big questions to answer and they're not very good with questions, big or small.
On their journey they meet a variety of eccentric characters: a priest who in a former life was a Roman centurion, an artist who now walks with a limp after venturing into the ring with a boxing kangaroo, a former inmate of the local asylum and a bartender who might well be Old Nick himself. The question is, whereas Beckett's characters walk round and round in circles and get nowhere, will Milligan and Murphy escape or be dragged back home by the mysterious man who has been cycling after them?
about Jim Murdoch
Jim Murdoch, a Scottish writer living just outside Glasgow, is the character Beckett never got around to writing. His poetry appeared regularly in small press magazines during the seventies and eighties. In the nineties he turned to prose-writing and has since completed four novels, two plays and a collection of short stories. In his blog, The Truth About Lies, he discusses the art and science of writing, his own and that of other authors, and muses at length about his lifelong fascination with the perversity of language. Veering from the nostalgic to the acerbic, his blog will amuse anyone with a love of literature.
other titles by Jim Murdoch
.png "This Is Not About What You Think by Jim Murdoch")
This Is Not About What You Think
Jim Murdoch
Fandango Virtual (19 July 2010)
ISBN 978-0-9550636-3-3
Paperback: 132 pages
12.8 x 19.8 x 1.4 cm
It may be something of a surprise to discover that novelist Jim Murdoch (Living with the Truth and Stranger than Fiction) is fundamentally a poet, but he has been writing poetry longer than many of his readers have been drawing breath. This debut collection of his poetry would be at home on the shelf between volumes of Philip Larkin and Harold Pinter, both masters of straight hitting observational poetry. In the same vein, Murdoch's work delivers home truths with a wry innocence and subtle wisdom in language everyone can connect with.
.png "Living with the Truth by Jim Murdoch")
Living with the Truth
Jim Murdoch
Fandango Virtual (4 May 2008)
ISBN 978-0-9550636-1-9
Paperback: 192 pages
12.8 x 19.8 x 1.4 cm
We meet Jonathan Payne, a faded old bookseller nearing the end of a wasted life, sitting alone in his flat just waiting for Death to knock at his front door. By the end of the book, having learned far more about himself than he ever wanted to know, he discovers that it's usually never too late to start again. Only sometimes it is.
.png "Stranger than Fiction by Jim Murdoch")
Stranger than Fiction
Jim Murdoch
Fandango Virtual (4 August 2009)
ISBN 978-0-9550636-2-6
Paperback: 188 pages
12.8 x 19.8 x 1.4 cm
A sequel to Living with the Truth, the novel takes place in a landscape generated by Jonathan's memories of his past life. Everyone and everything is as he remembers it, not necessarily the way it was.