From Kirkus Reviews
All Alcoholics Are Charmers ($18.95 paperback original; Oct. 4; 62 pp.; 0-85646-304-3) is a pleasant collection of verse by a young Irishwoman who was trained as a radiologist and has also published novels (The Midnight Feast, 1996; The Glass Mountain, 1997neither reviewed). The Celtic atmosphere of weather, religion, and misunderstanding is evoked in nearly every line, although the author is above falling back on Irish caricature in her portraits. There are the usual recollections of a Catholic childhood (She said that she was sorry, / but it was hard / to take an interest in the world, / Heaven being such a fine place.), the drink (When he was dying / my mother was always / crying and waving / a bottle of Black Bushmills / just out of his reach.), and emigration (From a convent / to the boat, / and straight down / to Wards in Picadilly / with my big sister.) But Evans doesn't let herself fall into any of the nostalgic swamps that mark such territory. --
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Review
'Evans has immediate appeal, not being afraid to take risks, using throwaway lines with zany overtones... Narrative flows, humorous, outspoken, carrying the sting along with it... This is no inexperienced voice, and I greatly look forward to hearing more of her' - Leland Bardwell, Poetry Ireland Review
Book Description
Martina Evans's new collection mines the rich seam running between rural Ireland and urban England, between personal and folk memory, and between fiction and reality. These are poems that simultaneously engage with the real world, while keeping a line open to myth and history. They are peopled with nurses, minicab drivers and priests, set-dancers, drinkers and lovers, Mayo labourers, children and Indian cornershop-owners. From County Cork to London's Holloway Road, `All Alcoholics are Charmers' is a second collection that buzzes and sings with life.
Martina Evans (b. 1961) grew up in Co. Cork. She trained as a radiographer at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, and moved to London in 1988. Her first collection of poems, `The Inniscarra Bar and Cycle Rest' appeared in 1995.
About the Author
Martina Evans was born in 1961 in Cork, the youngest of ten children. She moved to London in 1988 and began writing in 1990. As well as three earlier books of poetry - The Iniscarra Bar and Cycle Rest (1995), All Alcoholics Are Charmers (1998) and Can Dentists Be Trusted? (2004) - she has published three novels.
