Introduction

272
6. Appendix
Summary of Discussed Texts
Melanie Swiatloch
Robert McLiam Wilson, Eureka Street (1996)
Eureka Street tells the stories of the Catholic Jake Jackson and one of his best
friends, the Protestant Chuckie Lurgan. The setting is Belfast around the time of
the ceasefires of 1994. Left by his English girlfriend Sarah who has had an abortion
Jake is constantly looking for love. In the beginning he is having a short affair
with the waitress Mary who is the fiancée of the RUC officer Paul. Paul finds out
about Jake and one night appears at his door beating him up. Jake refrains from
reporting Paul, however, because he understands Paul’s motivation being merely
out of jealousy. Although having studied politics in London Jake works for a repossession
company together with the two Protestants Hally and Crab. He does
not like the task and his brutal workmates, quits and starts working on a construction
site. Meanwhile Chuckie falls in love with the American Max who he has met
in a bar. Max came to Northern Ireland because her father was shot there. Working
as a diplomat he was denied the chance to bring peace to the North and was
killed almost instantly as soon as he had set foot on Northern Irish ground. During
a double date with Max and Chuckie, Jake gets to know Max’s friend Aoirghe,
a radical defender of Irishness, and a dispute breaks out between them because
Jake is bored with this “bullshit” as he calls it. It comes to various quarreling encounters
between Jake and Aoirghe during the course of the novel. Being fed up
with having no money Chuckie decides to set up a business himself. By constantly
cheating on people in the most artistic manners he achieves his goal and becomes
immensely rich. Seeking help from a financial adviser he meets Luke Findlater
who, overwhelmed by Chuckie’s skill to persuade people to give him money,
wants to work for him assisting him expanding his business. Later also Jake joins
Chuckie’s business. The novel contains manifold strands of plot. The reader thus
also learns about Chuckie’s mother Peggy, her encounter with a bomb explosion
in the city centre and her love relationship with her neighbour and old friend
Caroline. Furthermore, Jake meets the twelve-year-old Roche, a kid from the West
Belfast. Because he avoids school and comes from a home that reminds Jake of
his own past he feels kind of responsible for Roche although he is crept over with
fear that people might think him to be a paedophile. Throughout the novel people
keep seeing the letters OTG being sprayed across Belfast wondering what it might
mean. During a business trip to America the OTG signs become even handy for
Chuckie. He gets invited to a TV show in which also Jimmy Eve, a man showing
some similarities to the Irish republican politician Gerry Adams, is supposed to
talk. In another following TV show Chuckie loses himself in his talking and even