 Now there's a new book that's out called The Black Friday 13 and there's a new pandemic, there's a need in the White House, there's a tyrant in the Kremlin and there's a lot of spies in Boyle because the water is turning white people black and they want to find an antidote to the problem but anyhow the book is Black Friday 13. The man behind it is the award-winning author, journalist and newspaper columnist, John Mulligan, who joins us now we're streaming live as well. John, a great afternoon to you. Hi John, great to be on the show. Now you wrote this during the pandemic and this is long before there was ever an invasion of Ukraine yet bizarrely there's parallels. It's kind of strange, one of those strange things John that there's loads of stuff in the book that has turned out to be kind of prophetic, particularly the way that if we can say that the Russian chief has gone off the rails a little bit and even things like I was looking for a name for this is obviously set in 2030 so we're projecting ahead it's the satire and I was looking for a name for the Russian prime minister and I didn't like any of the kind of generic Russian names for the kind of character I was writing. I call him President Zaizhnyi. Zaizhnyi is actually Russian for greedy which kind of summed up the character but some of the diplomats in the book referred to him and bear in mind this was written long before the war they referred to him as comrade Zaizhnyi and then when the war started all the Zaizhnyi started to appear on the tanks and on the trucks you know it's one of those kind of life imitating art I suppose. Well you wrote it during the pandemic and it features a pretty clueless president in the White House and a set of tyrants in the Kremlin and there's a new pandemic you really have plenty of source material I suppose. I had a rich vein to be mine there and on top of that it actually worked during my life in both America and Russia so I have a fair notion of the culture in both countries. John seems to have well it's actually frozen on the screen that is one of the hello John. We're back again. Just take us through I mean I've just very briefly outlined it's called Black Friday 13, it's set in 2030 but just kind of flash the story out of weaver it's Black humor and the best Black humor. It is Black humor and it's a political satire as well but it's it's meant to be funny and people say it is you know this is a laugh on every page but there's a serious message I suppose in is what we know what everything we try to do anyway. There's a new pandemic or a variant of the existing COVID pandemic but it seems to not affect Black people which sets the American president to a bit of a tizzy because he said you know this is not is a white man's disease we've got to do something about it so they approach a lab in Ireland and in Boyle of all places and why not and the lab decide to synthesize a vaccine that makes the genetic marker for skin color appear Black in white people but unfortunately what in the rush to production they ignore the the risk that this could persuade the chromosome to consider itself Black and change people's skin to Black which is what happens but to make it worse the American president has decided to add the vaccine to the water supply to overcome an artifact sentiment particularly in hillbilly areas in in the uh in Tennessee and places like that right so there's an added here of of uh I suppose comedy in that too you know yeah there's yeah there's a lot of all sorts of layers going on but it seems to me like the sort of book you the busy lockdown but it seems to me like the sort of book that when you started writing and just as you've outlined there and then you get into the characters that it would flow and flow very easily oh yeah once once they come up the initial concept you know you can go anywhere with a notion of white people turning in Black and all of that that raises you know one of the things that that the American president who is he kind of a dumb click says what's going on this going to do to property prices because everybody's going to be living in a Black neighborhood so it's you can go I could have written I could have written two books on it you know it's uh it's where to stop and where to draw the line and where to bring it to a conclusion and I think uh it might seem like I've given the plot away I haven't at all it it does come to a pretty satisfying conclusion at the end but there's there there's all sorts of uh almost like a real life involvement there and as you said at the start it's sort of eerie how real life in some ways has almost imitated what's what you wrote uh what almost a couple of years ago now yeah yeah and the fact that that that both that American political life was fragmenting and falling apart and that there was a danger in the Kremlin and I suppose because I have an interest in in Russia I haven't say I haven't worked there that that I do keep kind of a breast of affairs there a little bit and I could see that that it was getting out of control there you know and uh you know we've seen like when that invasion happened so we say I wasn't at all surprised well we chat about the Kremlin and we chat about the White House but a lot of it uh those feature boys as well it does of course yeah it means shenanigans shenanigans there yeah uh it and there's this huge opportunity obviously for having a bit of fun with that because uh the as I've said I think somewhere on in the blower or whatever that the the canny locals are well able for the American Russian spies you know and I didn't have to make that up because the people in Boyle would be well able to handle uh like it part of the the narrative is that there's a team of Russians and a team of Americans trying to blend in in Boyle and uh of course everybody knows exactly what they're doing yeah look at that yeah I can't walk down the street in Boyle but everybody knows what I'm doing and um though I read somewhere that you actually have your your next book finished on it's about uh an immigrant coming back from England and the tractor I do I do yeah that's uh it's a book it's it's um I have it when I say I haven't finished I have a 99 finished and the publishers have said if this one does well then they'll they'll be happy to run with it you know um but again they're not they're not running a charity they need to be selling books and making a few pounds to to justify their their faith in me you know but yeah I have I have that pretty much written it's kind of a it's kind of my homage to the the people who left Ireland in the 60s and 50s and and uh worked their lives away over there for very little and came back to very into nothing you know well uh once I think once people get stuck into this um it's it's sort of hard to put down because you get into the characters and it goes from uh one sort of one bizarre set of circumstances to another but you do get that you do get crypto in the story a bizarre as it as it may well be it's called Black Friday 13 and where can people get their hands on it shot it's it's unlimited release the moment that the we had a little launched as part of the boy last earth festival so it's stopped in places in that periphery like um labor books obviously in Sligo but I was right ahead of the curve on everything they have it um the nowhere in Donegal that I know of there's no bookstation in Donegal I think Monica's the nearest uh book station shops have it and it can be bought online from them or from the publishers if people go on to my website johnmulligan.eu forward slash books they'll find all the details uh the libraries too are starting to stock at Alan Hannah's distributors so they distribute to libraries as well so people can ask for in the local library and it will be stopped pretty quickly you know okay the actual the actual full launch of it is on the 21st of September in Dublin and there'll be wider distribution then but as I say at the moment it can be got a few go online so we may be we may be hearing more about it from the 21st but in the meantime it's called Black Friday 13 if you want to ask for it in your local food shop or search for it online and it's uh and it's a funny and a great read John thank you very much for joining us my target's beyond john thank you