Oh, Play That Thing: 2 (Last Roundup) - Softcover

Doyle, Roddy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014303605X ISBN 13: 9780143036050

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2005

Synopsis

The sequel to Roddy Doyle's beloved novel A Star Called Henry - an entertaining romp across America in the 1920s

Watch for Roddy Doyle's new novel, Smile, coming in October of 2017

Fleeing the Irish Republican paymasters for whom he committed murder and mayhem, Henry Smart has left his wife and infant daughter in Dublin and is off to start a new life. When he lands in America, it is 1924 and New York City is the center of the universe. Henry turns to hawking cheap hooch on the Lower East Side, only to catch the attention of the mobsters who run the district. In Chicago, Henry finds a newer America alive with wild, happy music played by a man with a trumpet and bleeding lips called Louis Armstrong. But in a city also owned by the mob, Armstrong is a prisoner of his color. He needs a man--a white man--and the man he chooses is Henry Smart.

About this title

Review:

Oh, Play That Thing is a fast-moving picaresque sequel to Roddy Doyle's novel about the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, A Star Called Henry. On the run from his former commanders, IRA assassin Henry ends up in the USA and copes indifferently with the gang-dominated New York of the early 1920s, and the worlds of Chicago jazz and the migrant workers of the Depression. Henry is a charming chancer, and a survivor, but this does not mean that he has an especially nice time for more than moments--his own ruthless past continually returns to haunt him.

Doyle does a nice line in memorable unpleasant images--a bunch of homing pigeons swollen and dying from bathtub gin; a wooden leg smouldering unnoticed from closeness to a campfire. There's also a strong sense of the changing language of immigrants trying to belong; this is, among other things, the story of how his Irish hero learns to think and speak in the American vein. The vignettes of real people--notably Henry's friend the young Louis Armstrong--are more than just decoration. In the Depression chapters, Doyle writes powerfully about the way folklore grows up. In places, this is a jerkily structured book, but it is always a highly intelligent one. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

"The action is fast, the language authentic and earthy... Henry Smart may not be admirable, but he is unforgettable." --The Boston Globe

"The terse, slang-studded rhythms of Doyle's prose have a striking musicality... A remarkable performance in language. --Chicago Tribune

"Doyle is arguably the finest fiction writer to emerge from Ireland since World War II." --The Denver Post

"Together, [A Star Called Henry and Oh, Play That Thing] constitute one of the most remarkable achievements in recent irish and American literature." --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 014303605X
• ISBN 13: 9780143036050
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384