For his many devoted readers: the first collection of stories from Booker Prize-winning author Roddy Doyle. For the past few years Roddy Doyle has written stories for Metro Eireann, a magazine by and for immigrants to Ireland. Each of the stories takes a new slant on the immigrant experience, something of increasing relevance and importance in Ireland today. The Deportees now brings those stories together for all of Roddy's devoted readers, ranging from a terrifying ghost story, The Pram, in which a Polish nanny grows ...
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For his many devoted readers: the first collection of stories from Booker Prize-winning author Roddy Doyle. For the past few years Roddy Doyle has written stories for Metro Eireann, a magazine by and for immigrants to Ireland. Each of the stories takes a new slant on the immigrant experience, something of increasing relevance and importance in Ireland today. The Deportees now brings those stories together for all of Roddy's devoted readers, ranging from a terrifying ghost story, The Pram, in which a Polish nanny grows impatient with her charge's older sisters and decides-using a phrase she has just learnt-to scare them shitless, to the glorious title story itself, where Jimmy Rabbitte, the man who formed the beloved Commitments, decides it's time to find a new band, and this time no white Irish need apply. Multicultural to a fault, the Deportees specialize not in soul music, but in the songs of Woody Guthrie.
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This collection is absolutely delightful. In each, Doyle focuses on coflicts and relationships among recent immigrants and native Irish. He manages to get inside the heads and hearts of his characters, their anxieties and fears, their hopes and plans, and especially their difficulty in adjusting to Irish life and culture. At times touchingly sad, these stories provide even more smiles and a good many laughs out loud.
The title story brings back Jimmy Rabbitt of The Commitments, now married and the father of four whose names reflect his love of himself and Motown: Jimmy Two, Marvin, Mahalia, and Smoky. Jimmy decides to form a new band made up entirely of immigrants ("No Irish need apply"). Great story!
I also loved "Guess Who's Coming for the Dinner" (you can guess what that one is about, but it will surprise you) and the one about Deklan, a half-black Irish native who comes to study literature in New York (but can't decide if he should focus on Irish Literature or The Harlem Renaissance).
I read the book in print but also listened to it on tape. The reader is a wonder; he's Irish, which always enhances Irish audiobooks, but he also does a mean Zimbabwean accent, sings the lyrics to The Deportees' numbers, and even does a fair job of giving voice to two-year old Mahalia Rabbitt.
