Review: Capital Sins by Peter Cunningham
New Island, €14.99
This rare beast -- a page turner as well as elegantly written -- resonates with bitter home truths, writes Sile McArdle
Tigerish satire hilariously contorts reality of the boom
PETER Cunningham's tigerish satire about the spectacular downfall of Ireland's fat cats will send shivers down your spine ... even as you laugh out loud.
In Capital Sins, this talented writer has deconstructed an over-stretched Celtic Builder, brick by brick, and put his self-serving Celtic Banker -- more aptly named here with a capital W -- under a blazing spotlight.
The builder is hypochondriac Albert Barr, of Barr None Enterprises, who loves the finer things in life so much that he has ceased to value them, and who relies on his boozy father-in-law -- the Minister for Infrastructure Development -- to make sure his projects get planning permission.
The banker is megalomaniac Eric Chester, who was run out of Middle England at 18 for a hellish scam, involving selling Bibles to the bereaved.
In the author's own incisive words, Albert looks like someone who sells pigs' feet for a living, and Eric, at his most attractive, resembles a disease-bearing rat.
The brilliant beauty of Albert's wife Medb-Marie is in inverse proportion to her tarnished mind. Her shrewish demands are outlandish; her reaction deranged when they cannot be met. Plus, she is supremely manipulative of her soft-touch husband, who nonetheless adores her.
Most of the main characters are fuelled by greed, madness or alcohol -- or a cocktail of all three. Indeed, even the good guys are compromised; burdened or blocked by the guilt of innocent shortcomings or past errors.
Of course, it's a massive caricature, a fairground-mirror contortion of how a once-mighty cast of characters fell so spectacularly on the sword of speculation and accumulation between the heady days of early 2006 and summer 2007.
But even the squeakiest-clean readers, those who didn't buy that holiday apartment in Bulgaria or over-priced bank shares, will surely squirm at the recognition that Capital Sins resonates with uncomfortable home truths.
The novel is hilarious, certainly -- made even more so by the numerous clever nods to various topical scandals, such as the shamed minister who flew first-class to Japan at public expense to inspect a parking meter.
Cunningham also has great fun with names: the earnest Irish Times reporter is Cyclamen Montgomery; the odious Daily Gael editor is Sam O'Sling; Fagan O'Dowd is the pained head of risk at HUBBI (Hibernian Universal Business Bank Ireland), Chester's inflatable-doll incarnation -- his smarmy colleagues on the executive committee consistently scorn Fagan's sensible suggestions.
No, they want to infect the domestic market with Chester's brainchild 'generational mortgage', the debt that never gets paid -- just handed down from one desperate generation to another.
As HUBBI seeks more personal guarantees from Albert to fund Goose Point Wonderland, Barr None's massive development at the coast in central Dublin, two dreaded words enter the landscape: archaeological find.
On-the-brink reporter Lee Carew rarely finds himself in any of the right places at the right times, but two lucky breaks mean he can make all the difference to whether Barr's Wonderland remains an excavated wasteland or becomes a lucrative waterfront development dominating the city skyline.
Capital Sins is also peppered with hilarious, scathing vignettes about the mercurial newspaper industry in which Lee works (large pinch of salt, dear reader, large pinch of salt). His features-editor boss is an alcoholic, paranoid mentalist, who aligns himself with Ernest Hemingway, for example, and super-sly managing editor Dick Bell promises Lee a favourable review of his not-yet-written book in return for skewing a story.
(For the record, I've never met or spoken to Peter Cunningham, and no brown envelopes were harmed during the writing of this review.)
Capital Sins is also that rare beast: a page-turner in terms of plot, but which also manages to be elegantly written. No mean feat when it comes to describing Albert's intimate ailments and his hairy sex life with his wife.
That said, one particular pillow-talk exchange towards the end, between Lee and his girlfriend, did not ring true; in fact, it was so irritating that it made this reviewer cringe.
I also felt that the book became somewhat contrived and lost momentum towards the very end, and I couldn't help wondering if this able author had found it difficult to construct his conclusions.
But that's nitpicking; this is a highly enjoyable read.
So, if you take any interest in how Ireland and all who sail in her -- even in an exaggeratedly fictional way -- sank into the credit swamp, read this novel at least once. And weep.
Originally published in
