This is the culmination of Patrick McCabe's Cullymore novels, and his biggest, boldest work yet. Think Under Milk Wood narrated by the Anti-Christ Patrick McCabe has been shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize, and his novels Breakfast on Pluto and The Butcher Boy were made into acclaimed films by Neil Jordan Winterwood won the Irish Novel of the Year 2007 and was nominated for the 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

'Powerful, razor-sharp and with a depth that calls to mind The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner ... McCabe is the real McCoy' Russell Hoban 'A hilarious circumnavigation around an Irish town and its vagabond inhabitants, in the grand tradition of Somerville and Ross and Flann O'Brien' Edna O'Brien 'Dazzling and wonderful Patrick McCabe orchestrates all of his familiar themes into a mesmerising tapestry of small town dreams and nightmares. He is master of his universe here, and what a universe it is' Neil Jordan PRAISE FOR THE HOLY CITY: 'Set in a realm as instantly identifiable with McCabe - McCabia one might call it - as Greeneland was with Graham Greene. The characteristics are those of small-town Ireland with an eclipse going on: a place of dark foreboding, shadowy misdeeds and antic tragic-comedy' Sunday Telegraph

Patrick McCabe was born in Clones, Co Monaghan, Ireland, in 1955. His novels include Carn; The Dead School; The Butcher Boy, winner of the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Literature Prize, shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize and made into a highly acclaimed film directed by Neil Jordan; Breakfast on Pluto, also shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Winterwood, winner of the Irish Novel of the Year 2007 and, most recently, The Holy City. He lives in Clones.