The Snapper: A Novel (The Barrytown Trilogy)

From Publishers Weekly This sketchy novel by Doyle ( The Van forthcoming from Viking; starred PW review, May 25), the second in his trilogy about a working-class Irish family, is almost all dialogue, which would be a clever device if the dialogue were not written in transliterated Irish accent ("yeh" for "you," "Jaysis" for "Jesus"). Fortunately, some endearing characters and a number of hysterically funny lines make this an enjoyable read. The narrative focuses on the Rabbitte family's eldest daughter, who has become pregnant after being raped by a friend's father, although she never recognizes the incident as rape. Sharon is determined to bear the child, referred to in Irish slang as a "snapper," and raise it alone. Although her conversations in pubs with her friends and at home with her family illustrate her position in society and often amuse as well, it is clear from the first chapter that her parents accept her choice, so the story lacks conflict. Even her struggle to conceal the identity of the baby's father seems assured to succeed from the start. One of the more touching details is her father's buying a book about women's anatomy and--better late than never--educating himself about pregnancy and female sexuality. In his own clumsy way he growspun intended. sg along with his daughter. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Dublin playwright Doyle's first novel, The Commitments (Vintage, 1989), told the story of Jimmy Rabbitte Jr.'s formation of Ireland's first soul band and went on to become a popular film. These two volumes continue the saga of the Rabbitte family in the mythic working-class Dublin neighborhood of Barrytown. The Snapper concerns the unplanned pregnancy of the eldest daughter, delineating nine months of sparring between Sharon, who refuses to reveal the baby's father, and Jimmy Sr., the clan's vulgar, witty patriarch. Among its many other virtues, it offers a sensitive fictional narrative of pregnancy. The Van picks up a year or so later. Jimmy Sr. is now unemployed, his family is growing up, and gloom has set in. Consolation comes when his best friend Bimbo also becomes "redundant" and the two go in together on a filthy, used fish-and-chips van. Their riotous adventures give a new spin to the notion of male bonding. Brilliantly constructed from the details of everyday life, both novels are made up almost entirely of dialog: sharp, crackling, relentless vernacular speech that never patronizes the characters. This is great comic writing that makes you laugh for pages yet keeps you aware that you could, instead, be crying. - Brian Kenney, Pace Univ. Lib., Manhattan Campus, New York Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews A warm, frank, and very funny account of family life and pregnancy as Irish writer Doyle (The Commitments, 1989; also see below) continues the saga of the endearing working-class Rabbitte family of Barrytown, Dublin. A playwright as well as novelist, Doyle tells the story of 19- year-old Sharon Rabbitte's surprise pregnancy almost entirely in dialogue. In less gifted hands, the experience would be claustrophobic, but with Doyle the reader becomes the undetected fly on the wall able to relish the unguarded talk as Sharon plucks up courage to relay the news first to her mom and dad (Veronica and Jimmy, Sr.) and her siblings, and then to the toughest group--her girlfriends--who, ribald and skeptical, want to know everything. But Sharon isn't telling who the father of her ``snapper'' is, which naturally fuels speculation, especially when the father of one of her friends insists he's responsible. Sharon tries to deflect the gossip by claiming that while drunk she'd been seduced by a nameless Spanish sailor, ``but she knew this as well: everyone would prefer to believe that she'd got off with Mr. Burgess. It was a bigger piece of scandal and better gas.'' For a while, Jimmy, Sr., feels his friends at the pub are laughing at him, and he blames Sharon; but Jimmy, a wonderfully complex and good man, realizes he's being unfair and, to make up, concentrates on Sharon's pregnancy in earnest. From library books, he learns as much about sex as pregnancy--information that he shares with his pub pals while keeping close tabs on Sharon's condition: ``She was getting really tired of her dad; all his questions--he was becoming a right pain in the neck.'' There are the usual ups and downs of family life, but when Sharon sees her baby ``and about as Spanish- looking as--she didn't care. She was gorgeous. And hers.'' Life and pregnancy as it really is: scatological, unsentimental, and, in spite of it all, with lots to laugh at. Not a false note anywhere. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "Jimmy Sr [is] a wonderful mixture of obscene bluster and boozy sentimentality. . . . He's intensely real, and the novel comes vividly alive as he begins to understand that he can't control the feisty Sharon." --The New York Times Book Review "Few novels depict parent-child relationships . . . better than this one, and few men could write sensitively about pregnancy. Don't pass up this novel." --Los Angeles Times Book Review “Very, very funny . . . The most amazing account of a pregnancy ever written.” --Maeve Binchy Roddy Doyle is an internationally bestselling writer. His first three novels— The Commitments , The Snapper , and the 1991 Booker Prize finalist The Van —are known as The Barrytown Trilogy . He is also the author of the novels Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993 Booker Prize winner), The Woman Who Walked into Doors , and A Star Called Henry , and a non-fiction book about his parents, Rory & Ita . Doyle has also written for the stage and the screen: the plays Brownbread , War , Guess Who's Coming for the Dinner , and The Woman Who Walked Into Doors ; the film adaptations of The Commitments )as co-writer), The Snapper , and The Van ; When Brendan Met Trudy (an original screenplay); the four-part television series Family for the BBC; and the television play Hell for Leather . Roddy Doyle has also written the children's books The Giggler Treatment , Rover Saves Christmas , and The Meanwhile Adventures and contributed to a variety of publications including The New Yorker magazine and several anthologies. He lives in Dublin. Read more