Tackling serious issues with humor
Print Edition
AWARD-WINNING Irish author Roddy Doyle brings a few of his earliest characters back in his latest book, “The Guts,” an achingly funny novel about some of life’s more serious issues.
Doyle is on his familiar Dublin turf in the book about Jimmy Rabbitte, the former manager of an Irish soul band who appeared in his first book “The Commitments” in 1987.
His first novel was the start of The Barrytown Trilogy, which included “The Snapper” and “The Van,” all made into films. “The Commitments” has been adapted for the stage and opened in London in October.
In “The Guts” Rabitte is a middle-aged married father of four, diagnosed with bowel cancer. He grapples with illness, reunites with two old band members and deals with teenage children, his struggling music business and his mortality.
Like his other books, most of “The Guts” is told through salty dialogue, with Doyle perfectly capturing the accent.
“The language of Dublin is ripe with profanity,” he said.
The former secondary school teacher who won the Booker Prize in 1993 for “Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha,” spoke about writing novels, middle age and returning to old friends.
Q: How did you decide to write books?
A: It is not uncommon for teachers to write. When I finished college and started teaching in 1979/80, in the back of my mind I thought I had done a little writing in college, read a lot of fiction and would love to have a bash and see if I can do it.
Q: Why did you brig Jimmy Rabbitte back from “The Commitments”?
A: I have finished 10 novels and only one stands alone. Rabbitte is the only character I’ve never gone back to ... I was writing about these things (people dying, children growing up) and I hadn’t really thought of a novel. But then I thought with the combination of things I was experiencing)I should go back to a character I already know, rather than invent one, and to see how he is really.
Q: Most of the story is told through dialogue with very little description. How did you develop this distinctive style?
A: Something clicked early on, and I started concentrating on dialogue and making sure that the strength of the characters was in what they said, or didn’t say. The initial nudge in that direction probably came from my teaching ... The challenge became building up characters by their accents, or trying to achieve their accents.
Q: Jimmy is a music fanatic. Is there a lot of you in the character?
A: Not a lot. I love music, but I am not involved in the industry. When I say I love music, I played a bit when I was shaving this morning. I know my stuff and I do listen a lot and I read a lot, but I’m not as fanatical as Jimmy. I started trumpet lessons that I used in the book.
Q: You deal with serious subjects such as cancer, the recession, and the Irish economy and their impact on characters, but in a humorous way.
A: Essentially, I see the world as comic in a way. I see it as confronting the world more than anything else. I’d like to think that if I ever had cancer I would take it very seriously, but particularly relations with other people, I would make light of it.
Q: You write so much about working-class Dubliners?
A: In terms of words and language, it’s home. The stories are in a way universal, but when a character opens his or her mouth I feel I know what they are saying, what they are wanting to say.
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