The Barrytown Trilogy: The Commitments; The Snapper; The Van

Three books in one, these are hilarious and often touching stories of the Rabbitte family. The Committments gives some family background, makes us think about what it takes and means to be a manager, and details the rise and fall of a working-class soul band. The Snapper gets a lot more serious, and is in turns very sad, infuriating and finally uplifting, with one of the Rabbitte daughters becoming a mother. The focus of the Van shifts squarely to the dad of the Rabbitte family, who goes into business with a fish and chips van, and while I had low expectations for this one, it turned out to be the funniest of the three in my opinion. Don't miss out on this collection...for the humor alone (and there is much more to these stories than just that) it is one of my favorite books of all time. I also recommend checking out the Committments on film.

Roddy Doyle must be some kind of genius...I was absolutely hooked right from page 1 of The Barrytown Trilogy, which collects Doyle's three books about The Rabbitte family, a large, loving clan in working-class Dublin, Ireland. The first book is The Commitments, which details the efforts of young Jimmy Rabbitte Jr. to form a soul band, not an easy task in mid-80's Ireland. The second book, The Snapper, revolves around Jimmy Jr.'s sister Sharon; She's pregnant (Out of wedlock), and won't reveal who the father is. The final book, The Van, centers on their recently unemployed dad, Jimmy Sr.; He teams up with his pal Bimbo to buy a Chip Van, and hilarity ensues... Doyle peppers the books with Irish slang that might slide right past most American readers, but don't let that deter you; You'll be up to speed in no time. The characters are wonderfully written, and it's a real joy to read about a LOVING Irish family for a change. I laughed out loud more times than I could count, and I loved the book so much I finished it in no time. And then I was sad it was over....Highly recommended. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll wish you were a Rabbitte!

It may seem unlikely now, but when Roddy Doyle's The Commitments was first published in 1987 it was the first Irish novel in years that represented the way people actually spoke, actually drank, actually spent an evening out, actually failed to have big sensitive inner issues trembling for expressiveness and so on. It was already a bit dated in its picture of the bottom level of Irish music (bands wouldn't be heard dead playing soul back then, they were all buying digital delay pedals and trying to sound like U2) but nobody could deny that Doyle had the best ear in the country. Well, actually they could, and did, but neither he nor his readership paid any attention. (Doyle is the only living "literary" writer in Ireland to have a seriously major working-class readership.) In my opinion, these books get better as you go along - though the film of The Snapper is far superior to the other two. Doyle got a lot of stick from Irish reviewers for not showing working-class Dublin life as a vicious urban hell, but his excuse was that it wasn't, not all the time anyway; the fractious but ultimately loyal Rabbittes are representative. (Interesting that when he did show a darker version of this life - in the TV series Family - he got attacked for being unrealistic.) Doyle writes better dialogue than any Irish novelist alive; I suspect he learned the value of it from American realism, and from the theatre company (Passion Machine) he used to write plays for, rather than from the previous generation of Irish novelists. His faithfulness to what the eye sees and the ear hears, as opposed to what the tradition demands, marks him as a distinctly un-Irish writer, even if his material is strictly here and now. He's a new voice, and thank God in these times of green and muddy Irish writing, an urban one (believe me, reading these books is _not_ like being in a village pub). All hail. Mine's a short.

Jimmy, Jr.'s band, Sharon's (way) out-of-wedlock baby, Jimmy Sr.'s mid-life crisis - these are the events that we follow with great interest as the story of the Rabbitte family of Barrytown unfolds. We can't help but laugh and empathize with this Irish working class clan as they struggle (raucously, emotionally, obscenely) through the pathos, trials and rewards of their lives. Doyle attacks the pride and prejudice of his kinsmen with cutting humor and compassion. These characters not only come alive off the pages - they live very deeply in what may otherwise appear to be a superficial existence. There is no high gloss sheen to cover over the harsh edges and sore spots - the picture is real and complete, and much funnier because of it. Good for you, Roddy Doyle, The Barrytown Trilogy is great gas, tha'. Grand, really.