James Walton

Home and dry

In the opening chapter of The Dead Republic, the last novel in The Final Roundup trilogy, the narrator, Henry Smart, gives us a handy summary of the story so far.

issue 17 April 2010

In the opening chapter of The Dead Republic, the last novel in The Final Roundup trilogy, the narrator, Henry Smart, gives us a handy summary of the story so far. With it comes a sharp reminder of just how improbable much of the plotting has been. ‘I found my wife again in Chicago,’ recalls Henry, ‘when I broke into a house with Louis Armstrong . . . I crawled into the desert to die. I died. I came back from the dead when Henry Fonda pissed on me.’

Roddy Doyle, of course, once specialised in more straightforward tales of working-class Dubliners, whether comic (The Van), tragic (The Woman Who Walked into Doors) or a bit of both (Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha). Then, in 1999, he suddenly struck out in a new direction. A Star Called Henry, the first volume of The Final Roundup, did retain his resolutely non-fancy writing style.

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