'This joins the hallowed heights of books I simply didn't want to come to an end (the others being "Adventures in the screenwriting trade" & "On the Street where I live").

JB writes in the rich patois of North Kerry, a hiberno-english mix of Elizabethean english and Bardic irish, brimful of similes and metaphors of the land. The book covers the fictional correspondence four men of the locale.

The letters of McAdoo, a local MP (or TD as we say in Ireland) bookend the selection. To use the term Machiavellian on him would be to describe Operation Barbarossa as a minor skirmish. In contrast to the endearing portrayal of the other characters, McAdoo comes across as a cynical self-serving monstrosity who will steep to any trick to ensure he remains atop of the local political machine. This is taken to jaw dropping levels in the final letters when he has finally become a Minister of State. The fun is had in that it doesn't take any stretch of the imagination to recognise many rural TDs of the the 60's and 70's in McAdoo's antics, given several would still have had the whiff of cordite from the war of independance.

The letters of the local priest and matchmaker are poignant, funny and endearing, and in the matchmaker's case sometimes heartbreaking.

Given the time that they were written in (1967-'75), J.B. didn't blink when it came to hacking at the twin shibboleths of nationalism and religion, a hobby not for the faint of heart in the days that were. What's endearing is that he still loves his subjects and characters for all their flaws, never sinking into humourless diatribes even when puncturing crawthumping pomposity and hyprocrisy.

There is just such a sense of place, colour and vibrancy in the letters. If you've ever been to rural Kerry, you know that there is no exaggeration in the language used. In summary, a true delight.' - Weshty, Amazon review.