Kevin Ireland: Getting Away With It

Reviewed by PENELOPE BIEDER

Right on the first page of his diary Professor Kendill Motte wades into a torrent of obfuscation. This is not a confession, neither is this a memoir, but a "straightforward record that will examine and explain what really happened". What it also is, is an uproarious, outrageous tale of lies and deception that had me laughing out loud. History Professor "High and Mighty Kendill Bloody Motte" is a wonderful creation, a thoroughly nasty piece of work, and he dominates Auckland writer Kevin Ireland's fifth and best novel.

At last some serious mischief, from a most mischievous poet, Getting Away With It ranks up there with Ireland's award-winning memoirs, and ruthlessly sets about turning the fictional historian's personal history on its head.

Motte is 66 years old, or possibly 63, and his mission is to prove that, whatever the evidence, the truth lies. When a younger woman rings him up and whispers enough to seriously alarm him, that she is on to him, knows his dirty little secrets, Motte knows he must do something. He opens a bottle of wine, a delicious, flinty riesling, meaning to have only one glass, but by the time the worrying phone conversation ends, it is nearly empty.

"I was going to have to go straight to bed and lie down for an hour or two ... Perhaps this would be the way everything would come to an end. Not with a bang, but a sodden snore."

But this is far from an unsteady, drunken rave. We discover, or we think we do, that the true Motte must stay, for most of the time, on red alert, keeping one step ahead, however much he longs to become an old soak.

In a sparkling, menacing, perfectly over-the-top account Motte takes us on quite a ride. There is murder, more than once, prostate cancer rears up and kicks him in the backside, and then Motte falls in love. There are echoes of Vonnegut, Bellow's Ravelstein and Roth's Professor Coleman Silk, but in Motte, Ireland has an original, entertainingly ghastly character — in fact he's a breath of fresh air, albeit single malt whisky-laden at times.

* Hazard Press, $29.99