Oh, Play That Thing

Fülszöveg

V PRAISEFOR V
^ . ! > A STAR CALLÉD HENRY:
p 'This really is a masterpiece.'
I IRISH TIMES
; 'This is Ireland's most famous Jiving writér tackling ohe of the most | crucial periods in hístory A Star Called Henry has all the hallmarks of the s|art of a major literary portrayalof a national experience.' Ik GUARDIAN
'Doyle at his best.^his portrait of turn-of-the-century Dublin's dark side is masterful. There is a Dickensian richnéss to lánguage and character.' | THE TIMES \
'Doyle just gets better and better , This is hi$t'q>y éyoked on an intimate, and yet earth-shaking scale, with a driving narrative that never falters.; "
Maybe the Great American Növel remains to be wrítten, but on the evidence of
•, ¦ • ¦'
its first instalment this is the epic Irish one, creáted at a high pitch of eloquence
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
'A vibrant work of fiction In Doyle's ambidextrous hands, the making of modern Ireland gets a vigorous and illyminating run-down.' """ INDEPENDENT V. \
On the... Tovább

Fülszöveg

V PRAISEFOR V
^ . ! > A STAR CALLÉD HENRY:
p 'This really is a masterpiece.'
I IRISH TIMES
; 'This is Ireland's most famous Jiving writér tackling ohe of the most | crucial periods in hístory A Star Called Henry has all the hallmarks of the s|art of a major literary portrayalof a national experience.' Ik GUARDIAN
'Doyle at his best.^his portrait of turn-of-the-century Dublin's dark side is masterful. There is a Dickensian richnéss to lánguage and character.' | THE TIMES \
'Doyle just gets better and better , This is hi$t'q>y éyoked on an intimate, and yet earth-shaking scale, with a driving narrative that never falters.; "
Maybe the Great American Növel remains to be wrítten, but on the evidence of
•, ¦ • ¦'
its first instalment this is the epic Irish one, creáted at a high pitch of eloquence
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
'A vibrant work of fiction In Doyle's ambidextrous hands, the making of modern Ireland gets a vigorous and illyminating run-down.' """ INDEPENDENT V. \
On the last page of A Star Called Henry, the first volume of the The Last Roundup trilogy, we left Henry Smart on the run from his Republican paymasters, the men for whom he had perpetrated murder and mayhem. He flees from Dublin to Liverpool and thence to Ellis Island, New York, America. And this is where Oh, Play That Thing begins • ' * <>y
It's 1924, and New York is the centre of the universe. Henry falls on his feet, as a handsome man with a sandwich board, and - this being Prohibition - behind his sandwich board a stash of hooch for the speak-easies of the LoWer East Side. When he starts hiring kids to carry boards for him, he catches the attehtion of the mobsters who run the district and soón thete are eyes on his back and men in the shadows. It is time to leave, for another America: Chicago.
VX'V/.' ¦ ' "" ' :¦¦: v "V'
In Chicago there is no past waiting to jump on Henry. The place is wild, as new as he is, and newest of all is the music. Furious, wild, happy music played by a man with a trumpet and bleeding lips called Louis Armstrong. His music is everywhere, coming from every open door, every phonograph. But Armstrong is a prisoner of his colour; there are places a black man cannot go, things he cannot do. And the rhob is in Chicago too: they own every stage - and they own the man up on the stage. Armstrong needs a man, a white man, and the man he chooses is Henry Smart.
This is a növel of prodigious energy and invention. Its language and its rhythms are as breathtaking as the music it celebrates. It shows yet again that as a writer Roddy Doyle is unequalled in his vision, his ambition, his ability to surprise us with each new növel. Vissza