The Guts by Roddy Doyle (Alfred A. Knopf 2013)

—You just said you loved it.

—Yeah. Because it’s shite.

—Ah, for fuck sake, listen. Nobody’s buyin’. The kids don’t think they have to.

—They download it for nothin’.

—Yeah, said Jimmy.—Exactly. My age group an’ a bit younger, we still buy. But they don’t buy much. An’ very little that’s new.

—Make a video.

—We’re goin’ to —

—A good one, said his da.—Make us laugh. Get your woman from the Rubberbandits video.

—You know the Rubberbandits?

—Of course I know the fuckin’ Rubberbandits.

The Rubberbandits were a pair of clever lads from Limerick who wore SuperValu bags over their heads, and rapped. Their song, ‘Horse Outside’, was the new national anthem. Jimmy hated them.

—More than eight million YouTube hits, said Jimmy.

—Twice as many as live in this poxy country, said his da.—It’s the way to go.

—But only about nine thousand bought the song, said Jimmy.

The misery in that statistic pleased him, all the noughts in the millions falling away – the state of the fuckin’ world.

The Guts by Roddy Doyle (Jonathan Cape 2013)

—It wasn't too bad so?

—No, said Jimmy.—No.

—Great.

—Not so far anyway.

—Fingers crossed so.

—Yeah, said Jimmy.—Yeah. When were yeh born?

—Jesus, said his da.—1941. I think. Yeah, 1941. Why?

—Was there much talk about the Eucharistic Congress when you were a kid?

—God, yeah - Jesus. Big time.

—Wha' was it?

—Big mass, all sorts of processions.

—No pope.

—No, said Jimmy Sr.—No. A raft o' fuckin' cardinals. My parents talked about it all the time. I think it was kind o' like 1990, for their generation.

—Wha' d'yeh mean?

—Well, 1990 was unbelievable - remember?

—I do, yeah.

—It was just the football to start with. But then, when it took off. The penalty shoot-out an' tha'. The country was never the same again. It was the beginnin' of the boom.

—D'yeh think?

—Yeah - I do. I mean, I had tha' chipper van at the time. With Bimbo, d'you remember?

—Yeah.

—An' it was a bit of a disaster, tha'. But I was never unemployed again - after Italia '90. I wouldn't let myself be. I was always doin' somethin', even before the buildin' took off. Because - an' this is true. We felt great about ourselves. For years after. An' tha' only changed a few years back. Now we're useless cunts again.

—Thanks for the analysis.

—Fuck off. You asked.

—An' 1932 was like tha', was it?

—Yeah, said Jimmy's da.—A bit. The country was only ten years old, remember. An' dirt poor. Then, like, the man in the flat next door to my mother's gets a radio - a big fuckin' deal. An' everyone bails in to hear it. She always spoke about hearin' your man, John McCormack, singin' live on the wireless. At the mass. Like he was Sinatra or - I don't know - some huge star today. The BublĂ© fucker or someone. My father said it was like the whole world was listenin' to somethin' tha' was happenin' here in Dublin. An' it probably was as well. Why did you ask

Jimmy told him.

—An' you came up with that idea, did yeh?

—I did, said Jimmy.—Yeah.

—It's a winner.

—D'yeh think?

—Fuckin' sure. If you do it properly.

—I will.

—Oh, I know, said his da.—D'you remember my cousin Norman?

—No, said Jimmy.—I don't think so.

—He'd be your cousin as well, I suppose. Second cousin, or first cousin twice removed or tha' shite. Anyway, he has a huge collection of old 78s an' stuff.

Bullfighting by Roddy Doyle (Viking 2011)

His parents went to the chipper after funerals. Bill found this out when he drove them home from one – the dead husband of his mother’s long-dead sister. He’d driven them there because the church and the graveyard were down the country, in a small kip of a village that seemed untouched by the now dead boom, except for the fact that the priest was Polish. His father wasn’t happy driving off the main roads any more, and his mother had shrunk. She couldn’t reach the pedals.

So she said.

Bill had said he’d bring them, and they’d climbed into the back of the car like they were his kids and they were all going off on a picnic. Already, he was making it up. He couldn’t wait to tell his wife and kids – his real kids.

He even bought them ice creams on the way.

He didn’t actually do that, but it was what he told Hazel and the girls when he got home. He saw the big cone outside a shop ahead of them.

—D’yis fancy a 99?

—Ah, no, said his mother.—It wouldn’t be right.

—Go on. Where’s the harm?

—Alright.

He had them licking away in the back of the car while he turned off the main road, onto a glorified lane that was all corners and gear changes.

They found the village. He drove through it before he knew they were there.

There was the mass. The priest sounded like a culchie who’d spent his childhood in Eastern Europe.

—Paddy was populler wit’ al’ the neighbours.

—He was not, he heard his father whisper.

—Shush, Liam.

There was the walk to the graveyard.

—There’s the clouds now, look.

—We’ll be drenched before he’s buried.

—We might make it.

—Wait and see. The bastard’s up there, orchestrating the whole thing.

The coffin was lowered and they went back to the village’s one pub for coffee and a few sandwiches. Bill met cousins he didn’t know he had and an uncle he thought had died in 1994. He kissed a woman’s cheek because he thought they were related, then watched her filling a tray with empty cups and bringing it through a door behind the counter.

(from 'Funerals')

Killing Bono (2011)

The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle (Penguin 1996)

I missed the 80s. I haven't a clue. It's just a mush. I hear a song on the radio from the 60s or 70s and I can remember something that happened to me; it has nothing to do with liking the song, Song Sung Blue - I'm doing my homework, listening to Radio Luxemburg , the chart show on Monday night, with Carmel and Denise. I'm drawing a map of Ireland, the rivers of Ireland. My blue marker is nearly wasted and I haven't got to Ulster yet. Lily The Pink - I'm sitting on my mother's knee, watching my Uncle Martin singing Delilah; I have a toothache. Somebody else sang Lily The Pink before or after him; I can't remember who - one of my cousins. All The Young Dudes - I'm watching Charlo washing himself at the sink. He still has some of his summer tan. But I don't know any songs from the 80s; they mean nothing - and the radio was on all the time. What did I do in the 80s? I walked into doors. I got up off the floor. I became an alcoholic. I discovered that I was poor, that I'd no right to the hope I'd started with. I was going nowhere, straight there. Trapped in a house that would never be mine. With a husband who fed on my pain. Watching my children going nowhere with me; the cruellest thing of the lot. No hope to give them. They saw him throw me across the kitchen. They saw him put a knife to my throat. Their father; my husband.

The Snapper by Roddy Doyle (Penguin Books 1990)

Sharon sat down again. She whispered to Jimmy Sr.
- Me uterus is beginnin' to press into me bladder/ It's gettin' bigger.
Jimmy Sr turned to her.
- I don't want to hear those sort o' things, Sharon, he said. - It's not righ'.
He was blushing.
- Sorry, said Sharon.
- That's okay. Who's tha' fuckin' eejit, Darren?
- Can you not just say Eejit? said Veronica.
- That's wha' I did say! said Jimmy Sr.
Darren laughed.
Veronica gave up.
-Da, said Darren.
- No, yeh can't have a bike.
Darren got up and left the room in protest. That left Jimmy Sr and Veronica by themselves.
- There's Cliff Richard, said Jimmy Sr.
Veronica looked up.
- Yes.
- I'd never wear leather trousers, said Jimmy Sr.
Veronica laughed.
Jimmy Sr found the remote control. He'd been sitting on it.
- He's a Moonie or somethin', isn't he? he said as he stuck on the Sports Channel. - And an arse bandit.
- He's a Christian, said Veronica.
- We're all tha', Veronica, said Jimmy Sr. - Baseball! It's worse than fuckin' cricket.
He looked at it.
He looked at it.
- They're dressed up like tha' an' chewin' gum an' paint on their faces, so you're expectin' somethin' excitin', an' wha' do yeh get? Fuckin' cricket with American accents.
Jimmy Jr stuck his head round the door.
- Finished with the paper yet?
- No.
You're not even lookin' at it.
- It's my paper. I own it. Fuck off.
Jimmy Sr switched again; an ad for a gut-buster on Sky.
- Jesus!
- You've got the foulest mouth of anyone I ever knew, Veronica told hi. - Ever.
- Ah lay off, Veronica.

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle (Penguin Books 1987)

- We'll ask Jimmy, said Outspan. - Jimmy'll know.

Jimmy Rabbitte knew his music. He knew his stuff alright. You'd never see Jimmy coming home from town without a new album or a 12-inch or at least a 7-inch single. Jimmy ate Melody Maker and the NME every week and Hot Press every two weeks. He listened to Dave Fanning and John Peel. He even read his sisters' Jackie when there was no one looking. So Jimmy knew his stuff.

The last time Outspan had flicked through Jimmy's records he'd seen names like Microdisney, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Otis Redding, The Screaming Blue Messiahs, Scraping Foetus off the Wheel (- Foetus, said Outspan. - That's the little young fella inside the woman, isn't it?

- Yeah, said Jimmy.

- Aah, that's fuckin; horrible, tha' is.); groups Outspan had never heard of, never mind heard. Jimmy even had albums by Frank Sinatra and The Monkees.

So when Outspan and Derek decided, while Ray was out in the jacks, that their group needed a new direction they both thought of Jimmy. Jimmy knew what was what. Jimmy knew what was new, what was new but wouldn't be for long and what was going to be new. Jimmy had Relax before anyone had heard of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and he'd started slagging them months before anyone realized that they were no good. Jimmy knew his music.