Irish author McCabe, known for dark comedy, visits Pitt

Seeing novelist and playwright Patrick McCabe in person might initially be something of a… Seeing novelist and playwright Patrick McCabe in person might initially be something of a letdown for his readers.

But that’s only because he doesn’t appear nearly as creepy or disturbing as his work might lead them to expect.

Reading from his acclaimed novels “The Butcher Boy” and “Winterwood,” McCabe offered the audience in Frick Fine Arts Auditorium Thursday night an ample taste of the dark comedy that characterizes many of his stories.

Fellow Irishman and McCabe, writer Colin McCabe introduced the author on behalf of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series, of which the event was part.

“Last week Patrick McCabe’s novel ‘Winterwood’ won the Hughes and Hughes/Irish Independent Irish Novel of the Year award, which probably confirms McCabe’s standing as one of the most exciting novelists of our time,” Colin McCabe said.

Combining small town Irish folk culture with hints of the macabre, he said of “Winterwood,” “You’ll be gripped, enthralled and terrified.”

He also praised “The Butcher Boy” as “nothing less than the most interesting use of Irish-English since James Joyce.”

“The Butcher Boy,” itself an award-winning novel, was later adapted by McCabe for a movie of the same name and the play, “Frank the Pig Says Hello.”

It follows Francie Brady from his troubled childhood in a small Irish town through his adult years, which are punctuated by what McCabe calls “an act of unspeakable violence.”

Any initial incongruity between McCabe’s tame outward appearance and the dark villainy of his characters was reconciled by his animated readings.

McCabe altered his voice for each character in “The Butcher Boy” and gave the audience sly, Cheshire cat-like grins as he spoke from the point of view of Francie Brady.

Reading Francie’s account of stealing an acquaintance’s collection of comic books, McCabe oscillated between blunt honesty and mock sincerity.

“We had to have them, and that was that. All he had to do was say, ‘Look chaps, I think I want my comics back,’ and we would have said, ‘Well, of course, Philip,” McCabe read.

Francie wreaks havoc about his town and is eventually sent to a reformatory where “he decides to turn over a new leaf,” McCabe said.

Walking into town with the rest of the reform school’s inmates, Francie overhears some elderly women say, “Look at those poor orphans!” as they pass.

“I had a mind to turn back and say, ‘Hey f— face! I’m no orphan!’ but then I remembered I was studying for the ‘Francie Brady, not-a-bad-bastard grade,’ so I turned back and gave them a sad, regretful face,” McCabe read.

Even within the confines of a parochial reform school, Francie causes trouble. He exhibits a disturbing lack of conscience as he lies to priests about hearing the voice of the Virgin Mary and steals money from a restaurant in Dublin.

“All the way downtown, all I could think of was, ‘Wanted from town to town for a crime he didn’t commit, it’s Francie Brady, the fugitive!’ Except for one thing: I did commit the crime,” McCabe read, speaking the wanted ad like a radio announcer from the ’40s.

McCabe ended his reading from “The Butcher Boy” with an excerpt that hinted at the darker reality of Francie’s life behind the troublemaking of his adolescence.

“Next week your solitary finishes, how about that?” a priest asks the now 45-year-old Francie. “I felt like laughing in his face. How could your solitary ever be finished?” McCabe read.