AustLit

'The Holy Babble is a sumptuous feast for the imagination. In this Hieronymus Bosch style drive-through, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny steal the Christ myth. Panty thieves, monkeys chained to word processors, and rebellious talking ants inhabit decrepit fringes of the city of Moralpanik. In fact, Moralpanik is all fringes, and no exits. No one can leave this world, not even the reader, nor will you want to. Kirwan stitches this aberrant crew of characters into stories that bend and twist better than Luna Park's old rattler roller-coaster. Strap yourself in because this carriage is going off the rails and into beautiful insanity.

''There is a host of freaks: wannabe vampires, headless masturbating deviants, and tortured serial killers. Much of the material is based on the Bible, or rather, The Holy Babble. Joseph thinks he is Superman. Mary is a struggling, pregnant teenager. Jesus appears in multiple forms, and his disciples are chain-smoking lunatics. All these characters are shadowed by menacing clown-like beings that seek to control and undermine free will. These interconnected short stories are darkly hilarious. They are richly woven with more than a hint of meta-fiction. I loved this book.' - Sally Harbison, writer and perpetual student

''In the Heavenly Herald last week, God the Father, Sun-Tzu and the peppercorn ghost said, "The Holy Babble is either humanly honest, or honestly human. Read it!" And thus, readers, together we've risen from the word graveyard in Kirwan's first, fast-flowing multiplicity of treasures, out across the void referred to -- a tale of those words reborn as characters in a near-transparent shaving from the paper they were born on. If you enjoy your characters sad, deranged and zany - in other words reminiscent of this thing we call life - you will really enjoy Kirwan's The Holy Babble.' - John M. Wenitong, aka Pemulwuy Weeatunga, author of the Fethafoot Chronicles' (Publication summary)