Keeping Up with the Kalashnikovs

Keeping Up with the Kalashnikovs is a 2014 book by Irish author Paul Howard and is the fourteenth novel in the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly series.[3][4]

Keeping Up with the Kalashnikovs
AuthorPaul Howard
Working titleRaiders of the Lost Dork[1]
IllustratorAlan Clarke
Cover artistAlan Clarke
CountryRepublic of Ireland
LanguageEnglish
SeriesRoss O'Carroll-Kelly
Set inDublin and Uganda, 2012
PublishedSeptember 2014[2]
PublisherPenguin Books
Pages385
ISBN978-1-84488-292-2
823.92
Preceded byDownturn Abbey 
Followed bySeedless in Seattle 

The title refers to Keeping Up with the Kardashians and the Kalashnikov rifle.[5]

Background

Howard finished writing the book on Valentine's Day 2014, and named it Raiders of the Lost Dork, a reference to Raiders of the Lost Ark and the insult dork. A month before publication, the title was changed to Keeping Up with the Kalashnikovs, as the original title was considered an outdated reference.[6][1]

Plot

Fionn is taken captive while teaching at a school in Uganda. Ross and the guys go out to rescue him. Meanwhile, Sorcha has given birth to triplets and Honor is more difficult than ever, acting as Pied Piper to a troupe of rats.[7]

Release

To promote the book, Penguin Ireland erected "blue plaques" at sites in Dublin significant to Ross.[8][9]

Keeping Up with the Kalashnikovs was the best-selling fiction book in Ireland for Christmas 2014, and it saw the book series pass the million-copy milestone.[10][11] It sold 25,431 copies in the year 2014.[12]

It was nominated for the Books Are My Bag Popular Fiction Book of the Year Award at the 2014 Irish Book Awards.[13][14]

Reception

In The Irish Times, Peter Murphy praised Keeping Up with the Kalashnikovs, saying that "Line by line [Howard] is an inventive, lively stylist, one whose grasp of the opposing rhythms of the northside and southside Dublin demotic is up there with Roddy Doyle’s." and that "the most effective chronicler of the frappuccino, cheese and vino years was not some superhip social realist but a working-class former journalist, Paul Howard, writing as an upper-middle-class grotesque."[15]

On Writing.ie, Declan Madden praised it, saying it was "a little darker then [sic] previous titles […] but had plenty of laugh out loud moments and was full of Ross’ usual humour."[16]

In the Irish Independent, Ian O'Doherty wrote that "There's an old rule in TV comedy that once you start sending your characters on exotic holidays, you're close to jumping the shark. After all, Ross is effectively a sitcom […] It's certainly an unusual departure for a character so associated with First World problems, and it stretches the character to its limits."[17] He later added that "transplanting [Ross] to the rather murky world of jungle terrorism and Somalian pirates was certainly a stretch. Keeping Up With The Kalashnikovs was undoubtedly his oddest book yet."[18]

References
  1. "Ross O'Carroll Kelly. Big in Ireland. And er...Belize". 8 September 2016 – via www.rte.ie. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. "So, Anyway . . . by John Cleese: The slow set-up without the comedy payoff". The Irish Times.
  3. "There's life in the old Rosser yet: Keeping up with the Kalashnikovs". The Irish Times.
  4. O'Loughlin., Writing.ie. Editor Vanessa. "Keeping up with the Kalashnikovs". {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  5. O'Carroll-Kelly, Ross (11 September 2014). Keeping Up with the Kalashnikovs. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 9781844882946 – via Google Books.
  6. O'Carroll-Kelly, Ross (14 February 2014). "Ahem. I have just this minute finished working on my next book. It's called 'Raiders of the Lost Dork' and you can buy it in September".
  7. "Keeping Up with the Kalashnikovs". www.rossocarrollkelly.ie. Archived from the original on 2 February 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  8. "OMG! Ross O'Carroll-Kelly has his own heritage trail". Independent.ie. 21 September 2014.
  9. "► VIDEO: Ross O'Carroll-Kelly plaque". www.irishtimes.com.
  10. "Creator of 'Ross' is one in a million". Independent.ie. 4 January 2015.
  11. "Brian O'Driscoll's book 'The Test' becomes Ireland's Christmas Number One". Independent.ie. 23 December 2014.
  12. Gilmartin, Sarah. "John Green stars as booksellers report strong 2014". The Irish Times.
  13. "BORD GAIS ENERGY IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2014 SHORTLIST". Independent.ie. 3 November 2014.
  14. Doyle, Martin. "Mary Costello shortlisted for top prize as first novel is published". The Irish Times.
  15. "There's life in the old Rosser yet: Keeping up with the Kalashnikovs". The Irish Times.
  16. O'Loughlin, Writing ie Editor Vanessa (10 September 2014). "Keeping up with the Kalashnikovs". Writing.ie. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  17. "OMG! It's into Africa with Ross O'Carroll-Kelly". Independent.ie. 7 September 2014.
  18. "Books: Keeping up with the Rosser..." Independent.ie. 13 September 2015.
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