Roddy Doyle

A Star Called Henry
Jonathan Cape, 1999, hardcover (PhP 150.00)
Born in the slums of Dublin in 1901, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores. Henry Smart has to grow up fast. By the time he can walk he's out robbing, begging, often cold, always hungry, but a prince of the streets. At fourteen, already six foot two, Henry's in the General Post Office on Easter Monday 1916, a soldier in the Irish Citizen Army, fighting for freedom. A year later he's ready to die for Ireland again, a rebel, a Fenian and soon, a killer. With his father's wooden leg as his weapon, Henry becomes a republican legend--one of Michael Collins' boys, a cop killer, an assassin on a stolen bike. An historical novel like none before it, "A Star Called Henry" marks a new chapter in Roddy Doyle's writing. It is a vastly more ambitious book than any he has written before. A subversive look behind the legends of Irish republicanism, at its centre a passionate love story, this is a triumphant work of fiction.
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
Minerva Books, 1994 (PhP 120.00)
Winner of the Booker Prize 1993. It is 1968. Paddy Clarke is ten years old, breathless with discovery. He reads with a child's voraciousness, collecting facts the way adults collect grey hairs and parking tickets. Doyle captures the speech patterns of childhood brilliantly, the weird logic of the incessant questions, the non-sequiturs and wonderments. Like all great comic writers, Roddy Doyle has become an explorer of the deepest places of the heart, of love and pain and loss. This is one of the most compelling novels I've read in ages, a triumph of style and perception.
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