The Parts

Library Journal

Tired of the usual format, Joe, a talk-show host on FM 101 in Dublin, Ireland, decides to "look into the corners [to] examine the small...bits of the worlds that we occupy." He finds a junkie, a mentally ill woman, and a gay prostitute (rent boy) whom he wants to interview on his show-the principal act that eventually connects the six lives that award-winning author Ridgway (Standard Time) eloquently portrays here. When the rent boy is kidnapped by the deranged doctor who happens to be caretaker for an enormously wealthy dying widow, all sorts of things happen. Sometimes comic, sometimes profound, this novel is a brilliant tale of how people's lives are connected and of the great need for that connection. Ridgway is a truly talented writer who one hopes will have a very long career. The Parts was voted one of the top 50 Irish novels of all time by the Irish Times and the James Joyce Center; highly recommended for anyone who wants to be entertained, feel fully human, and laugh.-Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

If John Dos Passos were writing today, had been influenced by Irvine Welsh, and had set Manhattan Transfer in Dublin, this might have been the result. In a grand house outside Dublin lives Fidelma ("Delly") Roche, widow of pharmaceutical tycoon Daniel Gilmore, who died in mysterious circumstances in a helicopter crash 20 years ago along with Delly's lover, Frank Cullen, Gilmore's corporate lieutenant. Now, aging Delly is dying of colon cancer (or is she only being drugged to keep her from finding out what's happening on her estate?) and is being cared for by Kitty Flood, an obese, somewhat successful novelist and a lesbian, and Roche and Gilmore's adopted son, Dr. George Addison-Blake, an American left on the doorstep of his namesake hospital as an infant suffering from an incurable disease that Daniel Gilmore's research later cured. Meanwhile, in town, Joe Kavanagh, a radio talk show host whose wife has left him, taking their daughter, decides to upgrade his show and so instructs his young, gay, horny producer to find more offbeat guests. The sixth member of the ensemble here is the "rent boy" Kevin, whose brief internal monologues punctuate descriptions of the others' actions and memories, including pornography, drug sales, murder, infidelity, insanity, menages a trois, and futile attempts at being good neighbors. All are brought together when Barry invites Kevin to appear on Joe's show, George kidnaps Kevin for his experiments in Gilmore's underground lair, and Kitty discovers the lair and inadvertently frees Kevin, whereupon Delly finds him wandering about the house and calls the cops. Meanwhile, Barry and Joe have enlisted Kevin's brother, a tough on the fringes of organized crime,who knows George through his drug and pornography dealing, to help find Kevin. Could all of this have been avoided if Daniel Gilmore had actually invented the memory-erasure drug he was said to be working on when he died? And did he invent it?Disreputable lives raised to the level of Literature. Agent: David Miller/Rogers, Coleridge & White