Smile by Roddy Doyle (2017)

Smile is the ninth novel by Roddy Doyle I have read and posted upon.  Obviously I greatly enjoy and admire his mostly set in Ireland novels.  I have also read a few of his short stories.

Smile focuses on a middle-aged recently divorced man, Victor Forde, on his own for the first time in years.  He has gotten in the habit of going to the same pub every night for a pint.  One evening a man his age, who he does not quite recall, comes over to speak.  It turns out they went to school together, the teachers were Christian Brothers.  The ensuing conversations bring back memories he had not wanted surfaced of sexual abuse by one of the Brothers.  The man had a sister that Victor fancied.

Flashing back to memories of childhood to those of his marriage we learn Victor was a well known radio commentator famous for his shocking remarks.  His wife is a very well known celebrity and a great beauty.

Like his other novels, Smile is very much a dialogue driven work, the conversations are sharp, funny and real.  We are given real insight into Victor.  As you read on you begin to reevaluate your assessment of Victor.

Smile was a great pleasure to read, just as I expected it would be.

I was kindly given a review copy of this book.

Mel u
The Reading Life

"Teaching" by Roddy Doyle (April 2, 2007, in The New Yorker)

My Posts on Roddy Doyle

In the last few years I have read eight novels by Roddy Doyle and several of his short stories.  Obviously I greatly like and admire his work, much of which focuses on working class modern Irish of Dublin. 

"Teachers" takes place in just a few hours, set in a school in Dublin, on the opening day of the school year.  The narrator, has taught there for thirty years.  Now every year on opening day a few students will tell him he taught one of their parents.  He tries to bring the face of the parent to mind.  He used to totally love teaching, he tried to engage the students.  Sometimes the passion comes back but many days he is watching the clock for last bell.   He thinks back over his life, to the women he has been involved with.

"Teachers" is very well done story that lets us feel we understand the life of the teacher.

I think the section I most appreciated was when he began to talk about how the student body had changed in the last thirty years.  It felt very real.

You can read it for a while here

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/02/teaching

Please share your experience with Roddy Doyle with us.

Mel u

"The Pram" by Roddy Doyle (1997)

Event Resources  Everyone Is Invited to Join Us for Irish Short Story Month Year Four

Ways to Participate-do a post on your blog and let me know about it-I will keep a master list and I will publicize your post and blog.

If you are an Irish author and would like to be featured, please contact me.   There are several options open.

If you would like to do a guest post on my blog on anything related to Irish short stories, contact me.

Roddy Doyle (1958, Dalkey, Ireland) is one of Ireland's most popular and prolific writers.  I have read and posted on eight of his novels.  In prior ISSM events I have posted on his short stories.   

"The Pram" originally appeared in his collection of short stories, Deportees and other Stories.  I read it in Anne Enright's anthology, The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story.  

"The Pram" is a very interesting story that centers on a Polish nanny working in Ireland for a family with a young baby boy and two girls, nine and ten.  The nanny loves the baby boy but she does not really like the two girls.  Her biggest duty is to take the baby in a pram on a daily walk, by the sea, along with the two girls.   Part of the pleasure and power of this story is in the interaction of the mother and the nanny.  The mother is condescending in the extreme to the nanny.   The story takes a turn to the dark side when the two girls tell their mother the nanny has a boyfriend, an Eastern European research scientist now doing remodeling on houses in Ireland.  The mother is really insulting to the nanny and the nanny begins to plot her revenge.   I do not want to give away too much of the plot.

"The Pram" is a story of the Celtic Tiger years, where Eastern Europeans did a lot of the physical work. we see Irish people patronizing their foreign employees.  Doyle makes use of Eastern European occult themes in his story.  The ending is quite horrific.  

Do you have a favorite Doyle novel or short story?  please share your thoughts with us.

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle (1995, 290 Pages, Man Booker Prize Winner)

My Prior Posts on Roddy Doyle

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is the ninth novel by Roddy Doyle I have read.  Obviously I greatly enjoy reading his work.  I think I have now read all of his novels meant for adults and I look forward to his future works.  

The story is set in Dublin in 1968.  It is told in the first person by ten year old Paddy Clarke, growing up in a working class neighborhood.  It is told in a near stream of consciousness format.  At first I was uncertain I would like this work as sometimes novels or stories from the point of view of a child can be overdone but I should have known from the prior eight Doyle novels I have read that I would really like this book.

I am getting behind on my blog posting so I am keeping this post very short, like a reading journal note.  If you want more details, there are lots of good book blog posts on it and Amazon has lots reviews.  It basically is the story of Paddy and his buddies running wild on the streets of Dublin, doing the crazy things ten year old boys do.  I found the creation of the mental state of Paddy perfect, with no false notes.  He has adventures, he tries to cope with his parents fighting, with the brutality of adults and their kindness, with trying to figure out what sex might be, and the death of a friend.  He is far from a perfect angel, stealing and picking fights.  We do see him gain in his understanding of life.  All in all I will join the chorus of those who really liked this book.   

Mel u

"Animals" by Roddy Doyle

"Animals" by Roddy Doyle  (2011, 14 pages)

March 1 to March 31

Year III

Event Resources-Links to lots of short stories, from classics to brand new works.   

My Prior Posts on Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle (1958, Dublin, there is background information on him in my prior posts on his work) is one of my favorite contemporary novelists.   People who know a lot more about Irish literature than I do say he is  one of the  best sources for learning  about life in contemporary Ireland.   I have read eight of his novels so obviously I like his work a lot.    Many of his novels are set among working class people in Dublin.   Much of the narrative in his work is carried in beautiful almost lilting at times Hibernian-English.     In 2012 during Irish Short Story Month Year II I posted on his very entertaining short story "Bullfighting".   

Like much of his other work, "Animals" centers on a family, in his case mostly the father, trying to deal with economic hard times in Ireland while keeping as much of your dignity as you can.    When we first meet George he is tending to same dead pet fish.    They are kind of important to his kids and he knows they will be said so he takes a cab over to a another town where they have a pet shop.   He gets what will be a long series of dogs that do not last too long.   We also learn about his marriage, like some of the other marriages in his work, and lots of one's in real life, it has its ups and downs but it endures. He is now on the dole and he has a mortgage and credit card bills so he is stressed.   He also has a weakness in his heart.  As time goes on we can gradually see him getting more and more into his pets, mostly dogs but some more fish also.   I admit I can relate very well only in my case it is cats.   To lapse into language that would be common place in the novels of Doyle, sometimes when you have problems pressing in on you it is just better to say "f*** it" and be with your pets.  This is sort of what this story means to me.  

I read this in New Irish Short Stories edited by Joseph O'Connor

There is a very interesting brand new interview with Doyle here

Mel u

The Van by Roddy Doyle

The Van by Roddy Doyle  (1991, 193 pages, book three of The Barrytown Trilogy)

The Barrytown Trilogy

Please consider participating in Irish Short Story Month-March 1 to March 31-

My Prior Posts on Roddy Doyle

The Van is the eighth novel by Roddy Doyle I have read.   Obviously I like and respect his work  a lot.    The Van is the last in a series of novels, The Barrytown Trilogy, about a working class family in Dublin, the Rabbitte family.  In the final book of the trilogy the father of the family, Vernon, and his best friend Bimbo set up a food van selling fish, chips, burgers, candy bars and a few other things.   I think this is my favorite novel of the trilogy but I really enjoyed them all.

It was so much fun to see the lads take a horrible looking van and turn it into a very much profit making food van.   There are, as we always find in a Doyle novel, lots of great conversations, lots of drinking and lots of people using the word "f**k" in various variations.    I am assuming it is normal in the setting in which this novel is written for a father to use this expression with his children but it seems a little shocking at times and would be considered appalling in the Philippines.  

Watching the food van business develop was just great fun and really pretty exciting.   I felt great when they started making strong money and worried when hooligans attacked the van out of pure meanness   Watching the interplay of the characters was a great treat and Doyle is brilliant at that.   There is still a lot of life in the Rabbitte family and I hope to read more about them one day in a future book.

The next Doyle book I hope to read is his Booker Prize Winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha.

I really hope to see the movies made from his books one day also.

I will post on his short story "Animals" during Irish Short Story Month.

Mel u

The Snapper by Roddy Doyle

The Snapper by Roddy Doyle (1992, 224 pages)

I was very happy when one of my Christmas presents was The Barrytown Trilogy by Roddy Doyle.  So far I have read six novels by Dolye including the first book in the trilogy, The Commitments.  I really like his work, obviously, and it gives me a real, I hope, feel for Ireland and the rhythms of Hiberno-English.

The Barrytown Trilogy novels deal with the lives of the members of a working class family in north Dublin, the Rabittes.  The first novel centered around the oldest son's attempt to start a band.  This one deals with the consequences for the family of the unwed pregnancy of the oldest daughter Sharon, age 20.  I am such an outsider to Irish culture that I needed Google to learn that in Irish slang, a "snapper" is what a baby is called, as in "Who is the father of that snapper you are carrying?"

The novel is told largely though conversations.  There are  three interrelated groups in The Snapper.  The first one is the Rabbitte family, father and mother, Jimmy Jr and younger children.   Of course it is a very emotional moment when Sharon tells her parents she is pregnant, made worse by her refusing to name the father.  We also have, and this was a joy to read, Sharon and her girl friends.  They go wild when they learn she is pregnant.  When she will not tell them who the father is they come up with all sorts of possibilities.  Then there are the pub friends of Jimmy Senior.  He is a little embarrassed his daughter is pregnant but he gets is a bad fight defending her.

We, though nobody else really does, learn who the father is, and is pretty shocking.   How Sharon tries to hide the father's identity is hilarious.

The ending of the novel was very warm and touching.

I really liked this novel an awful lot.  I have already started the last novel in the trilogy, The Van.

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle  (1989, 141 pages)

My Prior Posts on Roddy Doyle

If you want to learn about life of the ordinary person in Dublin, the ones who never really rode the Celtic Tiger, your best contemporary literary source for that just might be the novels of Roddy Doyle (Ireland, 1958).   I read five of his novels in 2012 and hope to read five more in 2013.

The Commitments is Doyle's first novel.  It is about a group of mostly young men from north Dublin who form a rock and roll band.  There is a quote on the back cover of the book saying it is the best ever rock and roll novel.  I have never read any other such works but I find this a very credible claim.   The story revolves around Jimmy Rabbitte Jr's progress in setting up a band.   He has a few friends who can play but he does not have every body he needs so he puts an advertisement for band members in the paper.    All sorts of people show up, including a fifty year old man who used to play with Otis Redding.   They want to have a soul band, playing the songs of Mo-Town singers likes James Brown.   Everybody in the band is  about thirty years younger than the older man, Joey the Lip and he guides them in the ways of Soul.   Jimmy also adds three girl singers to the group which adds some spice and some trouble when the lads all begin to fall for one of them.  They are all completely shocked to walk in on her and Joey the Lip in a passionate embrace.

This novel tells itself mostly through dialogue, which I really liked.   The conversations are just great.   There is a lot of alcohol consumed, some conflicts and turmoil.     Doyle really lets us see how getting started in a band in Dublin works.    He made me feel I was there in the band.   I think Joey the Lip made the novel for me!    

From the movie

The Commitments is the first novel in The Barrytown Trilogy which includes The Snapper, about the out of wedlock pregnancy of Jimmy's sister, and The Vans when we see the lads a bit older setting up a food van.  I have already started The Snapper and I really like it so far.  

The Commitments is a fast read.   I read parts of it on a long car ride and parts waiting around a government office.   It is very entertaining and the conversations, the lads do use a lot of what some would find offensive language but it seemed real to me.  

The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle

The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle  (2011, 336 pages, 494 KB)

The Irish Quarter

Please share your thoughts  on the best of contemporary Irish novels with us

My Prior Posts on Roddy Doyle

The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle is the third book in a trilogy that deals with Henry Smart who we first meet as a very young child on the rough streets of Dublin in the first decade of the 20th century in A Star Called Henry, then we follow him to the United States in Play That Thing and The Dead Republic takes him back to Ireland in 1951 when he is 49 and stays there with him until he is 106.   In the last book of the trilogy he is working as a consultant for the American film maker, John Ford on his movie about the IRA and the times of troubles that Henry lived through, The Informant.  

I am really glad I read these three books.   They are all what I would call fast reads.   I enjoyed the first one of the series for sure the most, the second one where he meets the American musician Louis Armstrong seemed a little contrived in its plot but still was very interesting.   The final work was the weakest one of the trilogy but it is still not bad.  For sure read the first book first and if and only if you really like it proceed on.  In the last book the part I liked best was when Henry met the Irish American actress Margaret O'Hara.   There is a lot of history to be learned from these three novels.

I will read more Doyle in 2013.  I have now read five of his novels.  

Mel u

Oh, Play That Thing by Roddy Doyle

Oh, Play That Thing by Roddy Doyle  (2005, 390 pages, 668KB)

The Irish Quarter

I am looking for suggestions for the best of contemporary Irish novels.   Please share your ideas with us.

My Prior Posts on Roddy Doyle

Oh, Play That Thing is the fourth book by Roddy Doyle that I have read in the last two weeks.  It is the second book, A Star Called Henry is the first one, in The Last Round Up Trilogy which centers on Henry Smart, born in 1900 in Dublin.   In the series we see him grow up on the very mean and dangerous streets of Dublin, kill a number of people, some for money, some for revenge and some in his role as a soldier in the Irish Republican Army.   I have read a few books on the Irish Civil war and Doyle's novel gave me a much better feel for the period than the non-fiction books I read.

Oh, Play That Thing opens with Henry Smart pulling into the Irish immigrants place of entry in America, Ellis Island.    Henry has almost no education but he has a lot of street smarts.   We see him set up his own business in New York City, advertising sign boards carried by men walking the streets.  It was great fun to see New York City in the 1920s through his Irish eyes.   Hit men show up looking to kill him for something he did back in Ireland and he moves on to Chicago.   Here he becomes the body guard and driver for the famous trumpet player Louis Armstrong.   We see how black people were treated in Chicago at the time.  A lot of the novel does deal with the cultural importance of Armstrong.

Most people say this book is not as good as the first one and I agree.  I am still deciding if the use of Louis Armstrong as a central character was a good idea.

In the last novel in the trilogy, The Dead Republic has Henry working for the famous American movie director John Ford who is making a movie based on his life.   I will read it soon.

Mel u

A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle

A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle (2004, 402 pages_

The Irish Quarter

I am looking for suggestions for the best of contemporary Irish novels.   Please share your ideas with us.

My Prior Posts on Roddy Doyle

A Star Called Henry is the third Roddy Doyle novel I have read in the last two weeks.  Prior to this I read The Woman Who Walked Into Doors and its sequel, Paula Spencer.   I have already started on the second book in The Last Round Up Trilogy and will read the final book right after I finish that.   He is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers.   All of the trilogy are available as Kindle editions.

A Star Called Henry is the story of Henry Smart up to age twenty.   We are there when he is born in the slums of  Dublin.   His mother is worn out at twenty and his father is the door keeper at a brothel and supplements his income as a professional killer.  This novel gives us  a wonderful feel for what it was like to be in Ireland in the first two decades of the 20th century.   By age 14 he is already a soldier in the recently founded Irish Republican Army.  He sees terrible violence and he kills for money and petty revenge.

There is a fascinating cast of characters in this novel, ranging from the owner of the brothel to a teacher ten years older than Henry that takes his virginity up to Michael Collins himself.   The book is a wonderful work of historical fiction.   I have read some history books on this period in Ireland but I learned a lot more from this book than from them.   

This a wonderful novel.   It does contain very graphic sex scenes and lots of violence.   It is told through the eyes of a young man, with almost no education but very street smart.  I loved the character of his book loving granny.   

This is a better novel than the two Paula Spencer books, in my opinion, and I liked them both a lot.   

I am currently reading the second book in the trilogy, Oh, Play That Thing, and Henry is now in America, starting in New York City and so far he has made his way to Chicago.  

Mel u

Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle

Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle (2007, 282 pages)

The Irish Quarter

I am looking for reading suggestion for contemporary Irish novels

Paula Spencer is a sequel to The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, with eight years gone by.   (My post of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors is here.)   Paula's abusive husband has been dead for almost a decade now and she is still single.  Her four kids are growing up fast.   Her daughter has followed her footsteps into alcoholism and one of her sons is a heroin addict.  Paula has been sober for four months and five days as Paula Spencer opens.  The Celtic Tiger is riding high during this period.   One of Paula's old cleaning lady cohorts is now rich enough to buy a second apartment, this time one in Bulgaria.    Dublin seems to Paula to becoming over run with foreigners and shockingly to some black people.   We can see this kind of bothers Paula but she deals with it.   She still cleans houses and offices but she has become a supervisor at the service that cleans offices.   She is still a spectator into the lives of those better off than her by looking at their houses and offices when they are not home.   There are a lot of really telling class indicators in the novel.

It was sad to see her daughter headed down the same path as Paula and any parent can feel the heart ache of a son hooked on heroin who steals the family TV to feed his habit.  Paula still fancies men and even talks about them pretty frankly with her teenage daughter in which they discuss men they consider possible "rides".   She is a little worried one of her sons might be gay. (I have learned lots of new slang from Doyle's novel and I know now that if you want to offer to take someone somewhere in your car in Dublin, you do not say "would you like me to give you a ride?".)

I am trying to decide if I like Paula.   Being blunt, looks wise it sounds like she is not bad for her age, she is pretty smart, she never reads of course.   She seems to have preserved her ability to enjoy the pleasures of life.  She has a sense of humor.   She was over all a terrible mother but we can make excuses for her and we want to.   I imagined Paula cleaning our house and wondered what she thought.   She would probably say "I wonder if he really reads all these books and the three teenage girls seem a bit spoiled and the cats for sure are."   Maybe she wonders if we look down on her because of her long history of drinking and her family troubles.   

For sure first read The Woman Who Walked Into Doors and if you like it, most people do, then read Paula Spencer.   Doyle has written two other trilogies and I bet there will be a third Paula Spencer novel.   I hope so and I hope she is OK.

Official Author Bio 

Roddy Doyle is the author of nine novels, a collection of stories, and Rory & Ita, a memoir of his parents. He has written five books for children and has contributed to a variety of publications including The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Metro Eireann and several anthologies. He won the Booker Prize in 1993, for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.

Roddy has written for the stage and his plays include Brownbread and Guess Who’s Coming For The Dinner. He co-adapted with Joe O’Byrne his novel The Woman who Walked into Doors and he co-wrote with Bisi Adigun a new version of The Playboy of the Western World.

He also wrote the screenplays for The Snapper, The Van, Family, When Brendan Met Trudy and he co-wrote the screenplay for The Commitments.

He lives and works in Dublin

Mel u

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle (1997,242 pages)

The Irish Quarter

In Fox, Swallow, Scarecrow by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne we read about the upper crust of Dublin society.   The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle is about their cleaning lady.  

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle is a really good novel.  It is told in the first person by Paula Spencer.   We first meet her at age 39, one year a widow with four kids and a very bad drinking habit.   She married at 18 to a man who abused her terribly.   It is a deeply done portrayal of a woman who blames herself for the horrible abuse she suffers  at the hands of her husband.   Paula is telling the story via an internal monologue and she flashes back and forth in time.   This is a very intense story of the life of Paula.   Doyle does a brilliant job of bringing her totally to life for us.  It is also a stark portrait of a culture that traps women in abusive relationships and teaches them to see their husband's abuse as their fault.  

There is really nothing out of the ordinary about Paula.   She loves her kids, has girl friends, and loves her husband and admires his macho good looks.   The culture also traps men in the role of thugs who need to prove their manhood through violence and heavy drinking.  The things that happen in the novel are not meant to shock us, there are plenty of TV shows that depict much worse.  It is the marvelous many layered portrait of Paula that makes this novel so great.  It is also a story of class stratification in Ireland.   A doctor takes a look at her and dismisses her as a drinker.  Children are judged by the shoes they wear.   Paula is not really bitter about her life, she just accepts it as normal.  Her husband is not just a monster but a multi- faceted person in a way more trapped than Paula.   I took no pleasure in seeing his terrible fate.  She cleans the houses of rich people but she does not really mind.   

Why is the novel called The Woman Who Walked Into Doors?   It is in part because when her friends would see her with a black eye or busted lip or see her teeth gone she would tell them she had walked into a door.   But it is also about a woman with real courage to keep going on with her life.

There is profane language in the book.  

I will, I hope, very soon read Doyle's followup book, Paula Spencer, which takes us eight years ahead in her life.   I am looking forward to catching up with Paula.   

Official Author Bio 

Roddy Doyle is the author of nine novels, a collection of stories, and Rory & Ita, a memoir of his parents. He has written five books for children and has contributed to a variety of publications including The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Metro Eireann and several anthologies. He won the Booker Prize in 1993, for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.

Roddy has written for the stage and his plays include Brownbread and Guess Who’s Coming For The Dinner. He co-adapted with Joe O’Byrne his novel The Woman who Walked into Doors and he co-wrote with Bisi Adigun a new version of The Playboy of the Western World.

He also wrote the screenplays for The Snapper, The Van, Family, When Brendan Met Trudy and he co-wrote the screenplay for The Commitments.

He lives and works in Dublin

Mel u

Roddy Doyle "Larry Linnane Loved His Daughters"

"Larry Linnane Loved His Daughters" (2007) by Roddy Doyle

"Under Pressure-The Writer and Society 1960 to 1990"-Chapter Thirty-Two of Imaging Ireland by Decland Kiberd

The Irish Quarter

Roddy Doyle is one of Ireland's highest regarded contemporary writers.   

Official Author Bio 

Roddy Doyle is the author of nine novels, a collection of stories, and Rory & Ita, a memoir of his parents. He has written five books for children and has contributed to a variety of publications including The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Metro Eireann and several anthologies. He won the Booker Prize in 1993, for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.

Roddy has written for the stage and his plays include Brownbread and Guess Who’s Coming For The Dinner. He co-adapted with Joe O’Byrne his novel The Woman who Walked into Doors and he co-wrote with Bisi Adigun a new version of The Playboy of the Western World.

He also wrote the screenplays for The Snapper, The Van, Family, When Brendan Met Trudy and he co-wrote the screenplay for The Commitments.

He lives and works in Dublin

The story l post on today by Roddy Doyle is  about an older man, a man sort of trying to figure out how he got to where he is in life and trying to shrug off the pain and the failures and get on with what is left of his life.    I have been trying to do just that for a long time and I loved this story.

"Larry Linnane Loved His Daughters" is the story of a man who is trying to get over a heart attack by walking.   His doctor told him he has to exercise so he has started walking everyday.   As he walks he thinks back on his life.  He has three daughters and he thinks about his relationship with them as he walks.   He loves having three daughters .   He tries to be a good father but he is selfish enough to enjoy being pampered by them.   As they get to be adults they still live at home and he is proud his relationship with them is so good he can talk to them about their sex lives.  Then one day something happens that just might change everything.   This is a very good story,I do think maybe it is a story that will be most liked by men over fifty with daughters.   

You can read this story for free by downloading the sample edition of Deportees and Other Short Stories by Roddy Doyle.

For sure I will be reading more of the work Doyle

Mel u

"Bullfighting" by Roddy Doyle (podcast)

"Bullfighting"  by Roddy Doyle (podcast 49 minutes, June 2, 2012)

The Irish Quarter

A Celebration of the Irish Short Story

March 11 to July 1

Resources and Ideas 

My Prior Posts 

Posts by Participants

If it were not for me, The Reading Life
would be closed for lack of interest-Carmilla

Please consider participating in the Irish Quarter.   All you need do is post on an Irish short story or related matter and let me know about it.   Guests post are very welcome. 


Pop quiz-name the publication that has done the most to support Irish short story writers?


Roddy Doyle is one of the highest regarded of contemporary writers.  He  (1968-Dublin)  won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.   He has published nine novels and  a number of short stories.  (I posted on two of his short stories, "Sleep" and "Ash" during Irish Quarter Year One in 2011.)  I was very happy when I checked The New Yorker webpage this morning when I found that their story of the week was "Bullfighting" by Roddy Doyle, read by the well known American author David Eggers.   As much as I can I am trying to post on stories that anyone can read as much as is feasible so I was doubly glad to find this.   My primary purpose in posting here is just to let my readers know of this resource so I will keep my post short.   In a way "Bullfighting" is about the lads in Kevin Barry's great story, "Beer Trip to LLandudno" turned late middle aged.   They are still mostly serious drinkers and love their Thursday boy's night out ritual and they have stayed close since school days.  


I think what I liked best about this story was that even though the characters do enjoy talking about "boy's stuff" like the pub waitresses's bodies and football, they are all grown men, far from perfect but at least grown ups.    In the post read conversation between the fiction coordinator of The New Yorker and David Eggers they focused on the central character, a man whose primary identity was as a father of three sons.    It felt so real and honest.   


You can listen to the story here

Doyle has a very well done author webpage where you can learn a lot more about his work and follow his career.

I have three more Doyle stories on my Ipad and I hope to read them soon.   


Please share your experience with Doyle.


Mel u