Deep Burn is the debut novel from Brendan Mac Evilly; it's a frenetic tale of art and the value of obsession; fame and the price of envy; friendship and the uncertainty of love.
The founding editor of popular cultural journal Holy Show, he's also the author of At Swim: A Book About the Sea, and his fiction and non-fiction has appeared in The Stinging Fly, Channel, the Honest Ulsterman, the Irish Times, the Guardian, and Sunday Times among others.
We asked Brendan for his choice cultural picks...
FILM
In a rare moment of getting to make my own cinema choice, I got to see the new Darren Aronofsky film, Caught Stealing, a violent romp, high-quality chewing-gum for the mind, if a little pointless. Mostly, cinema selection is dictated by my four-year-old so I'm guessing my next jaunt to the cinema will be for Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie. They managed to squeeze 11 seasons out for Laila Lockhart Kraner and a film before she hit 18. I hope for her sake she’s absolutely minted by now. But a genuine recommendation, for adults and kids, is Princess Mononoke (in 4K) showing at the Lighthouse Cinema 17–19 Oct.
MUSIC
Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee, a two-hour dream pop wonderland album, is a permanently open tab on my computer. You can’t get it on Spotify or the like, but Youtube has it advert-free. Such a rich soundscape but somehow easy listening at the same time. Props to writer Declan Toohey for the rec, which I’m passing on here. Guessing word of mouth is its main means of travel.
Also loving the smart girl pop of Self-Esteem. Heard her interviewed recently on Second Captains. Sound like a buzzer. And revisiting Solange’s 2012 EP True. Sounds as good as ever, and bringing me back to when I first me my now wife.
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BOOK
The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk (What a subtitle!) is a brutally funny riff on The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (which I tried to read last year but gave up on pretty quickly, too much unnecessary detail for my attention span, sorry). But no chance of giving up on Olga’s version. Narrated by, eh, the planet (?) and absolutely lays into men in general. Special mention for the funniest ‘Author’s Note’ of all time: "All the misogynistic views on the topic of women and their place in the world are paraphrased from texts by the following authors:" [Long list of Western Canon greats follows, including Sartre, Swifty, Milton, Kerouac, Conrad and of course W.B. Yeats] And yet, why do I think men will probably love this book as much or more than women?
THEATRE
I was lucky enough to see Dead Centre’s Deaf Republic last weekend. Without a doubt Ireland's most interesting, weird, wild but always enjoyable theatre company. This continues their adaption of literary texts for performance (recent ones include Mark O’Connell’s To Be A Machine and Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor). Their DTF offering this year adapts the poems of Ukrainian-American author Ilya Kaminsky. So many artforms employed to great effect, including puppetry which will also feature in the Barbaró Festival in Galway from 10-19th October. An ever-strong line up of theatre awaits here including another literary adaptation – Toby Thompson's adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince. And not to be missed exhibition for kids, A Children’s Guide to Anarchy.
TV
House of Guinness, just for the schadenfreude of the regular slips in accent from James Norton, and to see my mate Timmy Creed getting cuckolded for hopefully decent wedge. The first episode feels like humbler version of Gangs of New York. And yet can’t help but be curious another showcase of Dublin on screen (even though it’s filmed in Liverpool and Manchester). Also heartily recommend Scavengers Reign, available on Netflix (though not Netflix produced). Annimated, life changing sci-fi. If you liked Annihilation, this is weirder and better! Please please please someone fund Season 2.
GIG
So jealous of anyone who got to see Yousuke Yukimatsu at Index on 4th October. Keep listening to his Boiler Room set from earlier this year in Tokyo. Me and my aforementioned four-year-old still regularly bop about our living room to this. I had the weird pleasure/pain of catching Jeff Mills and Halina Rice in the big tent at Beyond the Pale this summer. Strange sensation of loving the tunes, but having to leave every twenty minutes due to big-noise-induced nausea. Thought I was hard. Turns out, not so much. Is now a good place to give a shout out to the six-strong DJ line up playing at my book launch on Thursday 9th October at Lucky’s?
ART
Visited Carl Hickey’s studio recently to see his oils in progress, ahead of his exhibition at The Horse in Dublin 1. We share the same launch night, 9th October, but you could go to his launch first, get a free glass, then back to mine having strategically avoided the readings and speeches. We’ll be there till close! The following Thursday sees the launch of Ishmael Claxton’s photography exhibition at the United Arts Club. Fine artist and fine venue. Though remember, no illegal substances in the courtyard guys! And yet another launch on 9th October is Steve Pyke’s Scribendi: Portraits of Irish Artists 1985–2025 at Photo Museum Ireland, which runs until 2 November.
RADIO/PODCAST
Tommy, Hector and Laurita are back on 9 October. I love Young Hot Guys too. These shouts might be a bit basic or obvious, but what a shame that these are podcasts and not radio. What happened that we couldn’t let fairly normal, hilarious people be themselves on the wireless and talk aimless (but rarely inane) shite? But for less shite talk, more thoughtful radio, however, RTÉ-produced Ambient Orbit is back for another 12-episode series, the first of which is dedicated to Manchán Magan, and opens with a dawn chorus recorded from the woods that Manchán planted around his self-built grass-roofed home in Westmeath.
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TECH
The PlantNet app is great for taking photos of plants and berries and working out if you can eat them (mostly not!) but generally a good education for city folk who didn’t have parents constantly pointing at various shrubs saying ‘that’s cow parsley’, ‘that’s sea spinach’, etc.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
Hmm, in Ireland at least, no one or thing ever gets desperately big, or if it does, we encourage them to feel the same size as ever, which is as good for them as it is for us. Though I guess the next really big thing might be complete ecological collapse. Fascinating & horrifying to see how that one plays out, though good to know the planet will probably recover pretty quickly if we disappear.
Deep Burn is published by Marrowbone Books
