About the Book
'A cyclone of a novel' Guardian
An absolute marvel' Max Porter, bestselling author of Lanny
'Dancing and dodging, surprising and poignant' Lisa McInerney, bestselling author of The Rules of Revelation
FIRST VOICE: Why are we listening?
SECOND VOICE: I dunno, I mean, what else is there to do?
Tony Cooney, a local-radio DJ, spends his days on air, talking to the listeners of Cork. They call in to tell him about overturned sewage trucks and nuisance graffiti artists, each story a small testimony to the bustle of life that goes on in the county. Off air, however, Tony is beginning to feel unsettled. His long marriage is strained, his teenage daughter is struggling with her mental health, and then out of the blue an old girlfriend gets in touch and suggests he come to visit.
Lou Fitzpatrick, Tony's young radio-show producer, is having her own off-air problems. She wants children, but her girlfriend has other ideas; they've lost their beloved cat and her father's drinking is way past problematic. Which is why both Tony and Lou are relieved to leave Cork and drive across Ireland as part of a radio publicity stunt organized by a local car dealership. Their aim is to give away the Mazda 2 that they're driving, the catch being that it must go to one of the many emigrants who have recently returned home to escape a wave of escalating terror attacks in London. But as they navigate dual-carriageways and Travelodges, giving airtime and narrative to the great cacophony of voices calling into the show, the car competition transforms into a surreal quest: Tony to find his first love, Lou to find answers to impossible questions, and all the while two mysterious voices listen in, making their own estimations...
A mighty tale of radios, road trips and of the noisy static of life, All Along the Echo asks us whether our lives ever add up to more than the stories we tell ourselves. Funny, warm and in the wilding spirit of George Saunders or Samuel Beckett, Danny Denton's novel is a bravura capturing of modern Ireland, one that shows us the possibilities of fiction, the nature of love and death, and what it is for each of us to be only the briefest signal in life's splendid broadcastttzchidhcmxc [static].
About the Author :
Danny Denton is an Irish novelist, the editor of The Stinging Fly and a lecturer in creative writing at University College Cork. His first novel, The Earlie King & The Kid In Yellow, was published by Granta Books in 2018, and nominated for 'Newcomer of the Year' at the Irish Book Awards. Among other publications, Denton's work has appeared in The Stinging Fly, Southword, Granta, Winter Papers, The Dublin Review, Guardian, Irish Times and Big Issue.
Review :
One of the best novels of 2022 so far... Brilliant... A beautiful cacophony
A cyclone of a novel... Best of all, amid the imaginative pyrotechnics, there are moments of real tenderness
Denton has done something magical here, maybe even a little metaphysical... Wonderful
One of my favourite contemporary writers. One of my favourite writers full stop. Danny Denton's work always blasts my mind and heart wide open, he's an absolute marvel
A boisterous chorus, brimming with humanity. All Along the Echo feels like a living thing, dancing and dodging, surprising and poignant.
An unruly, provocative and stunning novel. Lovers of literature and radio: this is for you
Wild, full-hearted, high-concept with real emotional heft
All Along the Echo has the energy of a rebounding pinball. Danny Denton takes you on a voice-switching, shape-shifting adventure
Grabs the reader by both shoulders and spins... Intensely exhilarating, moving, and often hilarious, this book is a wonder
Glowing with warmth yet resolute of focus across its fascinatingly fractured form, All Along the Echo is a declaration of love and frailty in a glitchy age of crossed wires and cross purposes
Danny Denon has written a beast of a novel, stretching both hands around the absurd, strange, awful beauty of modern Irish life and hugging it close to him, all of it
All Along the Echo is a very funny book with a sincerely bleak underbelly; a gritty, socially-engaged book with an antic exuberance that is so rare in contemporary writing. It's gorgeous and life-affirming.
