Three Monkeys Online

A Curious, Alternative Magazine

TMO: Andrew Lawless

Andrew Lawless is the founding editor of Three Monkeys Online. Originally from Dublin, but now based in Bologna, Italy, Andrew is a regular contributor to the magazine with a particular interest in literature, politics and music. He also runs Bodu Web Design, a web development company.


TMO Articles by Andrew Lawless


  • Self Censorship: The Jewel of Medina and The Portage of A.H to San Cristobal

    I have no idea whether Sherry Jone’s novel The Jewel of Medina originally deserved to be published, and I’m not quick off the bat to scold Random House, the publisher which decided at the last minute to not publish the novel after they were warned that it may cause offence to Muslims. Publishing is a subjective […]

  • Roberto Saviano and the new Italian epic

    Regular readers of Three Monkeys will know that we have a soft-spot for the Italian literary collective Wu Ming, the people behind novels like Q and 54 (which is very much on our ‘to-review’ list). Wu Ming I (there are five of them) has just published a thoughtful piece where he attempts to define what […]

  • Writers and the Credit Crunch – Margaret Atwood and Tim Parks

    I very rarely have the cause or inclination to browse to the Financial Times, but was glad to have done so today. The immediate reasoning was to check for news on the troubled bank of which I am, unfortunately, an account holder. No particular joy there, but instead I stumbled upon an extract from Margaret […]

  • The Publishing Manifesto and Raymond Carver

    Sarah Loud,head of digital publishing at Pan Macmillan, has published a much talked about Publisher’s manifesto for the 21st Century over at The Digatilist. It’s a long piece, and well worth reading. It starts with a fairly common position, that in this social-media/internet/mobile entertainment world the days of the book are numbered.   “More and […]

  • Orhan Pamuk and the Museum of Innocence

    Orhan Pamuk is interviewed in the latest edition of Venerdi di Repubblica magazine, here in Italy, and discusses the lengthy writing process he undertook for his new novel The Museum of Innocence, which will be published later this year (the Turkish version coming first, will be unveiled at this year’s Frankfurt book fair, where Turkey […]

  • Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits – Laila Lalami interview

    Hopes and dreams are the stuff of calculations, and conditional clauses; if I do x, then hopefully y will come my way. For the characters in Laila Lalami’s elegant novel Hope and other dangerous pursuits hopes and dreams have another more fundamental element – geography. All the calculations and aspirations of the characters rest on […]

  • Men and Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem

    Never judge a book by its cover. Sage advice, but what about its title? I approached Jonathan Lethem’s slim short-story collection Men and Cartoons less than enthusiastically, resigned to reading it because it was a) a gift, and b) short. The problem? The title, plus the promise that more than one story would concern itself with superherose, […]

  • Netherland by Joseph O’Neill

    I can sympathise, to an extent, with  DoveGreyReader who approached Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland with trepidation given the tag ‘post 9-11 masterpiece’ (the Observer) that has been widely used by  enthusiastic reviewers. It’s a problematic tag for any novel, but particularly so in this case given that the novel scarcely concerns itself with the attacks or their aftermath.  That’s […]

  • Literature’s Radiohead – Wu Ming or Gaiman?

    Back in December, mediabistro’s GalleyCat posed the question ‘Where will we find Literature’s Radiohead?‘. Not a question of matching literary style up to the Oxford band’s musical approach (although over at the Valve they see a similarity between Yeats and the band), but rather the starting point for a discussion on distribution methods – on […]

  • Film that! Londonstani by Guatam Malkani

    Mr Monkey’s recent post on possible book-film tie-ins made me dig out Guatam Malkani’s novel Londonstani. I approached the novel with a certain amount of scepticism, not particularly grabbed by the plot line of a young geek from Hounslow who seeks to develop his identity through designer clothes, body building, and hanging out with the […]

  • A questionable voice – The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

    Having just finished Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, it was a pleasure to stumble upon an interview with the author (on his site, via Powells.com) where he discussed the process that led him to choose the narrative voice of the novel. I had tried variations of minimalism in the third person, with voices ranging fable […]

  • The Minotaur – Benjamin Tammuz

    With a sparkling lack of imagination, perhaps,  I find the best way to approach this  intriguing novel by the late Benjamin Tammuz – former literary editor of Israeli newspaper Haaretz – is through his co-national Amos Oz. But, read the following passage about opening gambits between author and reader, from Oz’s collection of essays on […]

  • Who’s to blame? The Fosse Ardeatine and the struggle over memory in modern Italy.

    One of the most infamous attacks against civilians, during the brief and bloody end-phase of the second world war in Italy, took place on March 24th 1944. The victims of the Fosse Ardeatine massacre were three-hundred-and-thirty-five Italian men, a fact recognised by all. Less clear, at least in popular memory, have been those ultimately responsible […]

  • Challengers – The New Pornographers interview

    There’s nothing I like more than getting hooked on a melody, then stepping back an instant and realising that there’s an intelligent lyric shouldering the song up. Sure, there are plenty of good songwriters where the poetry is the element first and foremost that you notice – an arresting line, an alliterative glance that catches […]

  • Carry me down – M.J. Hyland in interview

    Finishing M.J. Hyland’s second novel, Carry Me Down, left me in a curious state. On the one hand I had that satisfied feeling one gets reaching a final full stop, like smacking one’s lips together at the finish of a particularly good meal. On the other, though, my eyebrows knitted together with questions regarding this […]