Urgh. I spent last night metaphorically up to my elbows in dead Germans. Really, it's too much. I don't know why we chose this particular events management firm, they don't seem to know what the hell they're doing. I think the manager must be an old flame of Eoin's, he did seem awfully keen to get them on board once I had mentioned the launch. I'm not convinced they're even a real firm - no one has business cards, and surely no one in their right mind turns up to a meeting wearing torn jeans and stinking of incense.


On the plus side, the guest list is looking quite good. Apparently we have confirmation of some reality television celebrities coming along - I'm not entirely sure what one of them is, but Eoin seems quite keen. He suggested that some of them might even be kind enough to sing at one of the events, but I'm not sure that's a good idea. The only one of these shows that I've seen had gardeners in it, and I didn't think they had particularly good voices. There was lovely brass music in the background, but I was distracted by the realisation that one of them wasn't even wearing her full quotient of underwear... sorry, I'm digressing.


Now that the dead Germans have been sent to their rightful destinations I can once again start relaxing. I booked myself and Eoin in for manicures and pedicures this afternoon, and then when he went to lie down for his early evening nap, I had an anaesthetist come over to knock him out and take him to London for the first half of the night. He's more than familiar with the feeling of waking up and not knowing where he is, so I'm sure he will start to enjoy himself, particularly once he sees the swans.

posted by Shazzle 8:41 p.m.

. . .

Following on from the Swan Debacle (as it’s now known), I didn’t think that anything else could go wrong. But obviously fate does not like to be mocked. In our book, The Inadvertent Twin, myself and Eoin chose to illustrate fate as a mischievous cat, leading the innocent down the rocky road to darkness and despair, all the while giving the illusion of choice while in reality directing the poor innocuous ones to doom. And then fate itself, in the final chapter of the book, was of course destroyed by a huge… but I’m telling you too much. The Inadvertent Twin will be available in all good book shops from Monday.

Anyway. Fate is leading us all on a merry dance today. First there was the swans. Then, my maid Petula forgot to record Classic Coronation Street for Eoin from UK Gold and all was hellish - there were tears, tantrums, actual fist fights, and Eoin got to see none of them. We dissolved some Valium into his lunchtime whisky chaser, and he seems much happier now, watching the Changing Rooms marathon on one of those god-forsaken channels. Actually, I think he’s drooling slightly. I must get Petula to clean that up.

Anyway, again. After we got the swans cancelled (the main course will now be beansprouts and mashed potatoes served with glasses of milk), the decorators called. Apparently there was a mix up with the delivery of the decorations for our event and the decorations for some event being held by the Passive Necrophilia Society. All of the decorations delivered to London turn out to be cadavers.

I will have to spend the remains (no pun intended) of the day sorting this out. Eoin, bless him, is blissfully unaware. I just hope nothing more goes wrong. My nerves are already shot.

posted by Shazzle 3:39 p.m.

. . .

Everything has begun to collapse.

I’ve just had the caterers on the phone. Something’s gone terribly wrong.

What we’ve decided to do, having two launch parties happening at the same time, is have two completely identical events in both London and Dublin – well, it saves on confusion, and also shouldn’t disorientate Eoin too much as he’s moved from one to the other (we have decided that it would probably be best if he’s sedated during the journeys, as he tends to get over excited, and that way he may not even realise he’s in another place. Also, it’s a condition of his bail).

What was chose in the end were the themes of innocence – this being a children’s book after all – and fairy tale. For some reason, everything is going to be white – the decorations, the flowers, the sculptures and the food. Eoin, as he likes things that fly, declared that he wanted swans at the party, and although we briefly explored the idea of having a lake with the birds swimming around in the middle of the room, we were advised that having live animals would cost too much in insurance, and also that swans are dangerous. So instead we talked him down to swan ice sculptures, which are not nearly so much trouble, and can be easily replaced if he has one of his temper tantrums and attacks their heads.

Somehow, someone went wrong while filling in the catering order, and rather than writing “swan” in the box marked “Shape of ice sculpture” they wrote it in the box marked “Main course”.

posted by Shazzle 10:37 a.m.

. . .

The problems surrounding last week's book launch started with Eoin’s brief incarceration at Her Majesty’s Pleasure… actually, who takes pleasure when you’re locked up in Belgium for trying to smuggle a suspicious package across the border? The package, you’ll all know from the Irish Times coverage, contained nothing more than some bars of hand-made soap, a packet of cheap cigarillos and three blind (and dead) mice. While waiting in custody to hear the final test results on the mice, Eoin made the unfortunate mistake of threatening one of the Belgian police with vague notions of higher powers, to which the district attorney (or whatever the equivalent is there) took great exception. Thankfully, that whole episode behind us, Eoin returned to living in my garden shed, emerging only occasionally to rap on my sitting room window and ask what’s happening in Coronation Street.

The book launch has been rescheduled to happen this weekend, with events taking place in both Dublin and London – the plan is that myself and Eoin will attend both parties, swapping in between the events like tag-team wrestlers and woo-ing the book reviewing public with our wit, talent, and free narcotics. Our publisher assures us – or rather assured me, since Eoin is no longer interested in meeting people that don’t live outside the fictional ITV village of Weatherfield – that this is a great idea, launching the book on both sides of the radioactive sea at the same time, and hopefully catching the eye of the American market.

I am personally quite worried at the prospect of unleashing the world on Eoin, let along unleashing Eoin on the world, but I’m not in PR, and therefore can’t quite think along the same lines as them. And for that, I thank the good Lord every day.

posted by Shazzle 5:01 p.m.

. . .

Book launch rescheduled to next Monday, 19th January, as long as Eoin is released in time. I am on my way to Belgium to talk to the magistrates. There must be just some simple mix up that will be sorted out in no time. The man is a tortured genius, for goodness sakes. Surely there must be some way to explain that gifted souls can't always abide by the rules made for ordinary plebians?

posted by Shazzle 8:34 p.m.

. . .

Book launch cancelled. All is lost. Am retiring to bed with bottle of whisky and slow release capsules. Wake me in a week.

posted by Shazzle 8:31 p.m.

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Another flattering review, this time from one of the Sunday broadsheets. After waiting for months for the book to come to the attention of the wider world, I am now hoping that the hype will end soon. Eoin can no longer cope, and is now living in the shed at the bottom of my garden, having reached breaking point when he found a journalist hiding underneath his bed, hoping to hear some of the poetry he is rumoured to recite in his sleep. I myself am coping well enough, keeping busy waking badgers from hibernation and training them to do my bidding. The New York Times is expected to print a review in tomorrow's paper, which should be quite interesting. Only time will tell whether The Inadvertent Twin will test the patience of the US art world, which is notoriously childish.


Reviews
Changing the Face of Children's Literature
The Inadvertant Twin" by Eoin Keegan and Sharon

In the aftermath of 9/11, no medium is free from the demand for a response. Children's literature has been slow to address the darkening horizons of modernity, characteristically cowering in the shadows of tired
franchises and empty fantasies. It's hardly surprising that the answer, when it comes, comes from such a dark and sinister corner.

Discredited children's writer Sharon has ended her 2-year silence to give us The Inadvertent Twin. There was an unforgettable outcry surrounding her last publication - which was removed from shelves just hours after its release upon the discovery that fragments of fibre glass had been inserted by the author (and unbeknownst to reputable publishers Scholastic) in order that children would appreciate the sensations of eponymous heroine The Girl With A Skin Complaint. Her next work would be strikingly challenged to placate those still baying for her blood, while keeping on side the few fans who maintain that her genius is simply misunderstood.

Sharon's choice of collaborator is quite devastating - a youthful ex-everythingoholic from Dublin, Keegan has in fact produced nothing of worth in his short artistic career, although the rumour some years ago that he had secreted scandalous photos of certain artistic luminaries in some of his more banal pieces, saw his entire locus being bought up in a frenzy that astonished the art world in the heady months of June and July 2001. What can we expect from such a curious team? Darkness certainly, bleakness even. A willingness to engage with the taboo, since both have fallen irrevocably into the mire of the unacceptable, and surely society is unwilling to ever accept them back within its inner circle. Cultural literacy, and indeed indifference have also characterised the previous work of both collaborators. And of course, one would expect the pages to seethe with the reported sexual tension of the two writers.

Readers will be surprised by what greets them. Ostensibly a mild fairy story with a trace of knowing sarcasm, The Inadvertent Twin almost entirely fails to shock. This rather, is a likeable and warm piece about an elf caught in a quest to discover her name. This reviewer was surprised to find herself won over by the guileless charms of the little elf and her beloved cat, and the warm cynicism of the elf's romantic ideals. But this is a book that breathes insidiously in the reader's mind long after the back cover is folded over. The elf's quest for her identity is doomed from the start, because in our new world order, identity is the ultimate double-edged sword. It facilitates our self-realisation, all the while tightening the noose of inevitable mutual-obliteration about our ethnically-defined necks. The forest of the tale bubbles with tension between scarcely-sketched characters, each failing to understand its own purpose or motivation. The book is peopled by confused ciphers, uttering 20th century wisdoms that are hollow and misunderstood. There is no agency in this story, only blind adherence to an inevitable narrative that nobody (least of all the reader) can perceive. The tragic downfall of our postmodern heroine will devastate children, but is this really a children's book?

The great triumph of The Inadvertent Twin is in its layout. 20 pages of exquisitely designed text are followed by 20 pages of illustration, also a collaboration between Sharon and Keegan. No necessary connection is made between the two, and in the gap between what we imagine while reading the story, and what we see afterwards, exists the tale's real power. The illustrations are brutal, dark and terrifying. The medium is not confirmed anywhere on the publication (certainly not on the review copy anyway), but I would be very surprised if that maroon was achieved without the use of human blood. As to the vicious evil of the cat's face (a pastiche of the faces of Osama Bin Laden and Pope John Paul); the superimposed blind eyes in the faces of all the figures, and the background pastiche of a forest in which the trees are composed of famine victims... This book won't sell, of course it won't. It won't accomplish any success on the Christmas market. But it is art. Oh yes, it is unquestionably art.

Carol Ballantine is professor emeritus of linguistic determinism post-End Of Humanity in the William Walters University of North Cavan. She writes for TV and radio, and has a regular column with this publication.

posted by Shazzle 2:10 p.m.

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