Hilary Mantel
Usually I just raise my eyebrows at the Booker winner, but this year I want to raise a cheer. Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Secker & Warburg, £12.99) is a very clever, controlled and skilful piece of writing which gives an effect of total trans- parency: life sliding into art without preten- sion or the appearance of ungraceful effort. Another small boy — 12-year-old Peejoe, who dreams of owning his old funeral par- lour — is at the centre of Crazy in Alabama (Viking, £15.99, £9.99) a funny, eccentric novel by Mark Childress. The year is 1965: Peejoe watches the civil rights movement unfold while his aunt Lucille, her husband's severed head in her hat-box, takes off for Hollywood to join the cast of 'The Beverly Hillbillies'. The rest defies summary, but it's neato, as Peejoe would say. A collection of poems I will enjoy for many years to come is Glyn Maxwell's Out of the Rain (Bloodaxe, £6.95). Maxwell's poems are supple, witty, ambitious and quite important, this — comprehensible.
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