9Frank Burgoyne chewed my ear off. A year ago, he'd written a blockbuster novel that had stayed on the bestseller lists for eons, or 27 weeks actually, before it dropped into remaindered oblivion. Born in Ireland, he wrote about his rough upbringing in Portadown but with pathos and humour. Especially the humour, dark, raucous and ribald, the humour sold the novel, that, on its own, was a fairly conventional coming-of-age tale. Images of his mother, left with six children, going down to the St. Vincent de Paul Society with a food chit and coming away only with a pig's head fomented pity and hilarity, particularly when Burgoyne described what happened to the head afterwards. Although it was a novel, clearly the events mirrored Burgoyne's own life closely and as more and more details emerged,
