Product Description: Born at the beginning of the twentieth century, Henry Smart lives through the evolution of modern Ireland, and in this extraordinary novel he brilliantly tells his story. From his own birth and childhood on the streets of Dublin to his role as soldier (and lover) in the Irish Rebellion, Henry recounts his early years of reckless heroism and adventure.
At once an epic, a love story, and a portrait of Irish history, A Star Called Henry is a grand picaresque novel brimming with both poignant moments and comic ones, and told in a voice that is both quintessentially Irish and inimitably Roddy Doyle's.
A New York Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, New York Post, and Independent bestseller A Star Called Henry--one of only four works of fiction--was chosen by the editor's of The New York Times Book Review as one of the eleven Best Books of the Year Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Time Out New York, Publishers Weekly, Esquire, Newsday, Miami Herald, Seattle Times, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution An American Library Association Notable Book Nominated for Best Fiction of 1999, the New Yorker Book Awards
Amazon.com Review: "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood." The quote is from Frank McCourt's memoir of growing up impoverished in Limerick, circa World War II. But the sentiment might just as easily have come from the fictional lips of Henry Smart, the hero of Roddy Doyle's remarkable novel of Dublin in the teens, A Star Called Henry. The son of a one-legged hit man, young Henry is the third child born but the first to live through infancy. He is also the second Henry--the first having died, and become a star in the mind of his mother.
She held me but she looked up at her twinkling boy. Poor me beside her, pale and red-eyed, held together by rashes and sores. A stomach crying to be filled, bare feet aching like an old, old man's. Me, a shocking substitute for the little Henry who'd been too good for this world, the Henry God had wanted for himself. Poor me.
Soon, his father has all but abandoned the growing family, and at 9 Henry is on his own, running wild in the streets, thieving to stay alive. Depressing as all this sounds, Doyle has invested his narrator with such an appetite for life, and rendered him so resolutely unsorry for himself, that it seems almost insulting to pity him.
By the time he is 14, Henry has become a soldier in the new Irish Republican Army and in one long and harrowing chapter, we view the events of the Easter Rising of 1916 from his position in the thick of it. It's not a pretty sight by any means, as the populace is divided in its support and various factions within the Republican Army threaten to splinter and annihilate one another before the British even get there. When the shooting starts, Henry aims not at the British but at the store windows across the street. "I shot and killed all that I had been denied, all the commerce and snobbery that had been mocking me and other hundreds of thousands behind glass and locks, all the injustice, unfairness and shoes--while the lads took chunks out of the military." Though the uprising is eventually crushed and the leaders executed, Henry escapes to live--and fight--another day.
In previous books such as The Barrytown Trilogy, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, and The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Doyle has established himself as one of the premiere chroniclers of modern Irish life. With A Star Called Henry, he works his singular magic on the past. What's more, this is only volume one of the Last Roundup, so it looks like we haven't seen the last of Henry Smart. And that's a very good thing, indeed. --Alix Wilber
Just not interesting to me A good friend of mine recommended this as an amazing book. Then I went to buy it at the book store and couldn't recall the author so I asked and the store clerk nearly lost his pants he was so excited I was buying it. 'One of my favorite books' he told me. So I was pretty excited that this book was going to be pretty good.
I really don't think there's much worth explaining, but I really did not like this book at all. In fact, after page 168 I closed it for good which I try to never do -- especially that far into a 350 page book. But it was boring and dry for me with no real plot. It reminded me of Middlesex a bit where there is no real crisis to the plot, except to examine this cultural idea or whatever. Well, this book feels the same to me. It seems more a look at Ireland's history than anything of actual plot line substance. And I don't mean to offend anybody by saying this book was that bad, but for me it really was awful. The worst part for me was the writing. I'm sure it's helpful to be familiar with Irish dialect but the whole read was chaotic and flowed -- well it didn't flow. At all. I feel left out since so many people enjoy it and I'm sad to say it, but this is probably the worst book I've read 168 pages of in my life. =o(
dissapointing I read this book as part of a book talk group. I could barely make myself finish it as it is full of foul language. I found it uninteresting and prefer to read real accounts of that time in history.
A (Revolutionary) Star is Born A wonderful journey into Ireland around the time of WWI and after: the author can make you taste, smell, hear, and, of course, see the place. I knew nothing about the nitty gritty of Ireland's problems politically, but now I have a great bird's eye view of the whole conflict. All of this while at the same time we see a real have-nothing Irish kid growing up to learn to hate the "enemy." As the book progresses, he finally comes to see himself as a dispensable tool of whoever he is working for...a truly sad awakening that puts the lie to those Revolutionary ideals. This story is so true to life that it shows us something of what Peggy Noonan wrote about in the Wall St. Journal yesterday: "They would grow up and assign their misery to outside forces. The boy humiliated because he's never sent to school with a clean shirt will turn that into 'Britain Get Out of Ireland.'....We often think it is large and abstract forces that drive history, when it is personal forces, too." The life of Henry Smart is a masterly illustration of this.
A Must For Researchers As Continental forces and Virginia militia units were engaged in winning independence, American quartermasters and provisioners struggled to provide these units with all the necessities of life, from meals and guns to meat, fodder for horses, the horses themselves, firewood, and every other type of material. Much of this was requisitioned from the civilian population and certificates were issued payable in either continental or state funds, depending on the units supplied, upon presentation to court authorities. Thousands of these certificates issued to Virginians were duly entered by the courts, and they provide a fascinating insight into the period of the Revolution. These "Publick" Claims booklets contain interesting and useful information about the contributions of ordinary people to the Revolutionary War. They provide some details of people's service in the militia or as guards for prisoners of war; they indicate where some bodies of troops were at particular times; and they identify providers of horses, wagons, cattle, grain, or other supplies. Much of the information in these booklets cannot be found anywhere else, which makes the surviving records particularly valuable. Also remarkable is the fact that records survived from virtually every county in the state at that time with the exception of the newly formed Kentucky counties. This makes the collection even more valuable in covering areas which heretofore in this time period have suffered from a lack of personal data. The "Virginia Publick Claims" are published by counties. In addition to a faithful transcription by Janice Luck Abercrombie and the late Richard Slatten, a complete index is provided for each county booklet. This series is an extremely important genealogical tool for searchers in Revolutionary-era materials.
SO THAT'S WHY THEY FIGHT? Henry Smart is a sorrowful figure. A robber, a beggar a doorman and destined to be caught up in the "struggle" as so many working class Irishmen and women are. Where else do they turn? Why do the English provoke them so? Answer these questions and you will answer the age old "Irish Problem" and end the hostilities once and for all.
Roddy Doyle takes us through the slums of early 1900's Dublin and asks the question Why? time and time again. At times the book makes me ashamed to be British and then I pinch myself and remember it's fiction. Or is it? It's the mark of a good fiction writer to make you think.
Roddy Doyle is the best Irish fiction writer alive today. Read him and weep!
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