The most interesting aspect of Malarky is Our Woman’s voice (the book shifts erratically between her first-person narration and a very vernacular-driven third person). It is a chronicle of this simple woman’s confusion when forced to confront her husband’s cheating on her and her son’s homosexuality (and later abandonment of the family for the army). Though it’s not as absurd or just plain weird as Beckett, the prose does give a distinct impression of being a relation to his. The comedy is wrung from her outrage at the unfairness of the life she has been dealt and her halting attempts to deal with it.
He's got good things to say about her prose style, too, and--apropos of the Beckett-talk--a nice digression on what it means to mould away to finality. There are worse things than being a cousin of Sam's! G'night folks. More poetry in the morning.
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