The Inadvertent Twin

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''This is a book that breathes insidiously in the reader's mind long after the back cover is folded over... It facilitates our self-realisation, all the while tightening the noose of inevitable mutual-obliteration about our ethnically-defined necks.'' - Carol Ballantine

Saturday, January 10, 2004

The hype surrounding The Inadvertent Twin began months before the book was even completed. The review below appeared a week before myself and Eoin had even decided upon the full name of the primary character, and mere days after we had chosen the colour of the title font on the front page. I laugh in the stupid faces of the so-called "press" (although some of them can be quite nice). It's the new journalism! Predictive reviewing! This review comes from Morag Keshtall, a Scottish journalist of the lowest calibre.

"The new collaboration between Eoin Keegan and Sharon will leave even the most eagerly excited fans gasping with delight. Their treatment of the most esoteric of themes is, as always, an exercise in novelty and originality. There are those who may find certain scatological facets bordering on the pornographic; but to do that would be missing the exquisitely expressed point. A point that is delivered with style and sharp certainty.

Not so much writers as artists, the Keegan/Sharon team challenge our expectations of the novel as a format, and overturn our critical faculties, rendering this reviewer at least utterly speechless. Their power to thwart the ordinary and stifle the mundane is a thing of immeasurable importance in a literary scene that so frequently threatens to choke in its own stagnation. It is Keegan's very quixoticness, blended with Sharon's unique quotidiatudism that makes this pairing both startling, refreshing, and yet curiously familiar. If it contained words, I would say that this novel is nothing short of essential reading; being as it is an entirely fictitious fiction, I can only suggest that readers hurry to consume it before its cover is finally blown."

The "press" have been camped outside my door ever since the prefaces were previewed. I did attempt to post up a brief statement on this weblog last night, concerning Keegan's latest foray in to the land of the illegal, but Blogger.com was mysteriously unavailable. I won't be making any comment concerning this, other than to imply that they probably did it on purpose so that our artistic voice couldn't be heard, and that I'm on to them and the government.

posted by Shazzle 2:10 p.m.
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Thursday, January 08, 2004

Welcome to this, the weblog about the publication of my first collaborative children's book, The Inadvertent Twin, which is being published following a gala twin-lauch in Dublin and London this weekend, on Monday, 12th January 2004, cleverly just missing the Christmas market.

For the last three years or so, I have been working on a new genre of children's writing, working in collaboration with the controversial Irish artist and raconteur Eoin Keegan.

Below, you will find an exclusive preview of the preface to the book, written by myself and my collaborator Eoin. Tomorrow, when we get the first press reaction, I'll be publishing that here. In the meantime, do enjoy the authors' introduction to The Inadvertent Twin

PREFACE BY EOIN KEEGAN-
"When I was presented with the opportunity of engaging in a collaborative work, it arrived at a telling moment in my own career. I had reached a turning point in my art, and I was beginning to doubt the merits of my previous work. My engagement in shock art, the rows of piglet heads attached to the dead bodies of stray cats, the life size replica of a living room which I had carefully filled with papier mache models of various grandmothers, all gained admirable critical success, and after extensive gallery viewings were eagerly bought into private collections, but I began to feel that this work, in some indefinable way, was somehow jaded.

When the acclaimed children's writer Sharon turned to me as the ideal partner for a magical work intended to reclaim lost innocence, I was suddenly very moved, and felt that this was the right thing to do. So abandoning the various papier mache models, pots of glue and spare animal parts, I engaged in what has been the most magical transformation of my life, and working with the astonishingly talented Sharon has been an honour I will treasure for ever."

PREFACE BY SHARON -
"When I heard about Eoin Keegan's financial troubles, I was of course very keen to help out in any way I could. Those speeding tickets do tend to take their toll, and of course the prostitutes aren't going to pay for themselves. I feel that this represents a new direction in my work, which was previously littered with stories of speaking trains and flying hedgehogs - and there was also the children's work.

The difficulty that we first experienced at the beginning of our collaboration was quickly overcome following Keegan's brief spell in rehab / time spent at her majesty’s pleasure. it has been, for me, an important and life-changing path to take, and I for one am very grateful that this work exists. I am sure that, one day, within this very story, the cure for AIDS will be found."

posted by Shazzle 2:09 p.m.
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