Table of Contents
Praise for A Star Called Henry
An American Library Association Notable Book
This novel proves that Roddy Doyle can do it all: its rip-roaring, page-turning, blood-and-thunder entertainment... but its a considerable work of literature as well, an impressive heir to OConnor, OCasey, and Yeats, compassionate, thoughtful, and wise.
The Washington Post Book World
Inspired by Charles Dickens, Peter Carey, Gnter Grass, and Salman Rushdie, Doyle... has done no less than dismantle some of the founding myths of twentieth-century Irish nationalism.Alan Riding, The New York Times
Brilliant... ferociously powerful; Doyle captures the desperation of the slums with the intimate authenticity of a poet.
The Boston Sunday Globe
A luminescent Bildungsroman... the kind of book you cant wait to finish, but dont want to end.... A Star Called Henry is virtually flawless, a minor masterpiece.
The Seattle Times
Sheer poetry... Doyle... shows again and again that the heart of his characters, the beauty and the vulnerability, comes from the telling of the story.... And Henry is just the man to tell us what we need to understand the history of Ireland.
San Francisco Chronicle
Doyle handles this ambitious, lofty pairing of history and fiction beautifully.... A Star Called Henry is Doyle at his most Joyceanribald and gritty, marvelously in tune with his characters voices and, most of all, unwaveringly dedicated to Ireland. It is a magnificent novel.
Time Out New York
Riveting... wonderfully resonant.... This fascinating, unpredictable, and fast-paced story, written in the colloquial language of Dublin, is a bold music played on the roughest of instruments, a tune that sways between tragic irony and wild comedy.Minneapolis Star Tribune
Some books sweep you into the embrace of their arms and do not let you go. Roddy Doyles sixth novel, A Star Called Henry, is of that breedcompelling, original, devastating, funny, a masterwork, an instant classic. Its as if Doyle has reinvented language and the way a story gets told.... It is all vivid, vulgar, chilling, witty, but most of alland this is Doyles geniusA Star Called Henry is hugely tender, a book that comes from a wise and empathetic heart.
The Baltimore Sun
Rousing... Stellar... Whats amazing is that Doyle propels his marvelously researched historical account... with the same quick-witted colloquialism and visceral prose that made his other novels... such canny delights.
Entertainment Weekly
Doyle here... [tries] his hand at Irish epic, and he wields the style like a sword, with the power and grace of a master.
The Village Voice
Remarkable... as a portrait of one very memorable Irishman, and as a soulful and unflinching view of Irish history, A Star Called Henry delights on every page.... Doyles development as a serious and important novelist is itself a notable and heartening aspect of Irish history, and its unimaginable that anyone who reads this first volume wont eagerly anticipate the next. The San Diego Tribune
Doyles sheer talent as a storyteller... is awesome.
Richard Bernstein, The New York Times
One of Irelands preeminent novelists... Doyle, like Henry, ultimately seduces, and his reader has no choice but to follow.
The Chicago Tribune
A wonderfully entertaining historical novel, full of romance and incident, sex and intrigue, nonsense and wisdom.
New York Newsday
The much-loved Irish author breaks impressive new ground with this masterly portrayal of the making of an IRA terrorist.... Absolutely extraordinary. Readers who thought Doyle has outdone himself with the deftly juxtaposed comedy and drama in his recent fiction will be amazed and delighted all over again.Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Doyle just gets better and better.... This is history evoked on an intimate and yet earth-shaking scale, with a huge dash of the blarney, some mythical embellishments and a driving narrative that never falters.... Maybe the Great American Novel remains to be written, but on the evidence of its first installment, this is the epic Irish one, created at a high pitch of eloquence.Publishers Weekly (starred review)
PENGUIN BOOKS
A STAR CALLED HENRY
Roddy Doyle is the author of six novels. The first threeThe Commitments, The Snapper, and 1991 Booker Prize nominee The Vanare available both singly and in one volume as The Barrytown Trilogy, published by Penguin. In 1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha won the Booker Prize and became an international bestseller. Doyles next novel was the acclaimed The Woman Who Walked Into Doors which was also a bestseller and was followed by A Star Called Henry. Doyle has also written for the stage and the screen: the plays Brownbread and War; the film adaptations of The Commitments (as co-writer), The Snapper, and The Van; Stolen Nights (an original screenplay); the four-part television series Family for the BBC; and the television play Hell for Leather. Roddy Doyle is also the author of the childrens book The Giggler Treatment. He lives in Dublin.
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By the same author
Novels
The Commitments
The Snapper
The Van
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
The Woman Who Walked Into Doors
Plays
Brownbread
War
This book is dedicated to Kate
Heaven
Im in heaven
And my heart beats so
That I can hardly
Speak.
IRVING BERLIN
Part 1
One
My mother looked up at the stars. There were plenty of them up there. She lifted her hand. It swayed as she chose one. Her finger pointed.
Theres my little Henry up there. Look it.
I looked, her other little Henry sitting beside her on the step. I looked up and hated him. 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 mans. Me, a shocking substitute for the little Henry whod been too good for this world, the Henry God had wanted for himself. Poor me.
And poor Mother. She sat on that step and other crumbling steps and watched her other babies joining Henry. Little Gracie, Lil, Victor, another little Victor. The ones I remember. There were others, and early others sent to Limbo; they came and went before they could be named. God took them all. He needed them all up there to light the night. He left her plenty, though. The ugly ones, the noisy ones, the ones He didnt want - the ones that would never stay fed.
Poor Mother. She wasnt much more than twenty when she gazed up at little twinkling Henry but she was already old, already decomposing, ruined beyond repair, good for some more babies, then finished.
