Blues Dancing
by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

List Price: $24.00
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0688149952
Publisher: HarperCollins

Born in 1955, the second of five children, Patrick McCabe grew up in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland, a border town much like the one he describes in Breakfast on Pluto. Although he always considered himself a writer, McCabe taught English in London schools and played music in a country-western style band. His first two novels, Music on Clinton Street (1986) and Carn (1989) were well received critically, but it wasn't until the 1992 publication of his third novel, The Butcher Boy, that McCabe won international acclaim. Nominated for the Booker Prize, The Butcher Boy catapulted McCabe to literary stardom and allowed him to write full-time. McCabe followed with The Dead School in 1995 and co-wrote the screenplay for The Butcher Boy with director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game). The film was released (with McCabe in a cameo role) in 1997. McCabe was again honored with a Booker Prize nomination in 1998 for Breakfast on Pluto, which was a bestseller in Ireland. Of the gender-bending hero(ine) of his most recent work, McCabe states,"To me, the sexuality is not the main thing. It's the conflicts he must live through."

McCabe is currently collaborating on a screenplay with Neil Jordan for Breakfast on Pluto, working on a 2-CD set of readings and performances, and finishing a short story collection Mondo Desperado, which will be published by HarperCollins in March 2000. He lives in Sligo, Ireland with his wife and two daughters.

top of the page