The Last Chronicles of Ballyfungus

The Last Chronicles of Ballyfungus by Manning, Mary.. Hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780316545235.

Thus begins The Last Chronicles of Ballyfungus, which does for the Anglo-Irish gentry what Compton Mackenzie did for Scottish islanders in Whisky Galore and what Evelyn Waugh did for the English aristocracy in Vile Bodies. Read on to learn about the astonishing population of this astonishing town: the poet "Tott" (actually the Earl of Tottingham) and his artsy aunt, Lady de Bracey, a motor-scooter-riding gossip who cleans for everybody, a totally depressed student of Beckett, a small, tax-sheltered group of intelligentsia whose sexual habits are somewhat exotic, the bridge-playing "fearsome foursome," Lady Mabel Vigors, her sister Albinia, Dr. Josh Browne and General Artie Ironside. And one dyed-in-the-doubleknits villain, Johnny Fallon, a real estate parvenu who sees developments everywhere--especially in Balooly Woods, Ballyfungus ancient and beloved forest. When Fallons schemes begin to materialize, the denizens of Ballyfungus take (eccentric) action, from confrontations at a poetry festival, to Gandhi-esque lie-ins before Fallons bulldozers, to a congenial murder that sports the happiest outcome of any homicide in literature. There is no way to read this book without laughing out loud over and over again.