Customer Reviews

The Deportees: and Other Stories

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These short stories were written for publication in a relatively new Dublin paper that is aimed at a non-traditional readership - those persons who have recently emigrated from Africa and other non-Irish cultures. The eight stories involve interaction between the traditional Irish and recent arrivals to the Emerald Isle. The stories are presented in the dialogue form, liberally sprinkled with the profanity that Doyle does so well.

Most of the stories are interesting. The dialogue moves you quickly through the book. You meet unusual characters: the Polish nanny who frightens her young charges with horror stories, and the young man who developed a test to measure Irishness - the average Irishman scores 57%. But one must wonder about the wisdom of publishing a collection of short stories, all of which have the same limited scope. Moreover, some of the stories are knock-offs of tales that we all know. The first story, "Guess Who's Coming for the Dinner?" is almost identical to the old Sidney Poitier movie "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" The title story, "The Deportees," is a rework of Doyle's very successful movie, "The Commitments" - this time with people of color. It's déjà vu, all over again.

The thing I like about Roddy Doyle's books is that they are all so different fron one another. The first one I read was "A Star Called Henry" and since then I have read all his others,and look for each new one he writes.
As with many writers,a reader will like some better than others. I am not a big reader of short stories ,because they usually leave me wanting more. This is the case of each of the 8 stories in this collection. It seems that just as the story gets interesting;it ends.
Otherwise,as one can expect from Doyle ;the writing and writing style always engrosses one,and once again we get the same in this collection.
The copy I have is the hard cover edition with the picture of the members of the new band "The Deportees". I am really impressed with this and I have commented in other reviews that I thought it would be a great addition to many books if pictures of the characters involved in the story could be included in the book or on the cover.This idea is even workable in the case of fictional characters as has so aptly been done in this case. It was great as we were introduced to each band member,to turn to the cover and find them there. The big question remains;did Doyle describe the characters to "fit " the photos or did they find people to "fit" Doyle's characters,or were they all real?? Anyway;congratulations !!

Ich am of Irlonde
Ant of the holy lande
Of Irlonde.
Gode sire,pray ich the,
For of saynte charite,
Come ant dance wyth me
In Irlonde.
"Ich Am of Irlonde" [14th century]

It amazed me after reading this how different Irish humor is from American humor. Doyle is a native of Ireland and his humor reflects it. Wanting to take a break from classic literature, I found this book and decided to give it a try.

I really enjoyed his wide variety of characters. They ranged from older men trying to come of age and accept the changes being made in Ireland, to a little boy who is teased on his first day of class. I learned a great deal more than I had ever thought I would about Irish "culture" through this book. Doyle painted a picture that was easy for me to relate to. I liked that he is very descriptive in describing the emotions of the Dad in the first story that met Ben for the first time. Or the poor boy who got arrested to try to prove the steretyping in Ireland; and who can forget the man whose job was to come up with a formal way to measure how "Irish" one is.

The only way to make this book of short stories more entertaining would be if I could grasp Irish humor. I'm sure some of the things that I read and thought nothing of them were things that other people who know this humor would be in stiches over. Overall, Doyle is a great writer and created a book that was fun and easy to read and I would love to recommend this book.

Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958 and saw his first novel, "The Commitments" published in 1987. It was later adapted for the big screen, a version that saw Star Trek's Colm Meaney and a very young Andrea Corr among the cast. Doyle went on to win the Booker Prize in 1993 with "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha".

Doyle begins the book with a short foreword, noting the changes he's seen in Dublin (and in the Irish) since the early 1990s. "It happened", he says, "somewhere in the mid-90s. I went to bed in one country and woke up in a different one." Having once been a country that exported its people, it now had a healthy immigrant population of its own. "The Deportees" is a collection of short stories - all of which first appeared in Metro Eireann - that takes this change as its central theme.

The book's highlight, for me, was its "title track". As well as being the book's longest story, it also features a familiar face : Jimmy Rabbite, the ex-manager of The Commitments. Jimmy's now 36, is married to Aoife and has three kids - with a fourth on the way. He's still mad about music, hates the Corrs - presumably on a musical level only - and answers to the name `Slim Shady'. The story sees him deciding to put a band together, with the members picked from Dublin 's immigrant community. (It'd have been great to find out how Jimmy's brothers and sisters were doing, and if Larrygogan was still alive. The only ex-Commitment who makes an appearance is Mikah Wallace, now quite possibly the world's grubbiest born-again Christian).

Of the remainder, there are two I'd give the nod to - although the others are by no means disappointing. `New Boy' follows Joseph's first day at school in Ireland. Unfortunately, he's sitting in front of Christian Kelly, the class nuisance. The little brat has one equally torturous acolyte called Seth Quinn - and the pair have apparently decided that Joseph's good for a bit of entertainment. `Black Hoodie', meanwhile, is told by an Irish schoolkid in his transition year. As part of their education, his class have to set up their own mini-companies. Our hero sets up `Black Hoodie Solutions' with a Nigerian girl and a classmate with access to a wheelchair. The trio aim to provide consultancy services to local shops and businesses, to help them avoid stereotyping the youth of today. Unfortunately, their efforts land them in trouble with the Gardai.

An easy and enjoyable read, definitely recommended

I've always loved Roddy Doyle's writing and this is no exception. The book is fabulous. Very funny and wry. A total joy. I didn't want it to end!

Really enjoyed the dialogue and the situations that captured the changes in Ireland during the time of the Celtic tiger, which corresponds to the time we lived there

If you are a fan of Doyle's early work, this collection of short stories revisits the style and tone of such works as The Commitments (which is revisited to some degree), The Snapper and The Van, the ever solid Barrytown Trilogy. The tone is generally lighter and more enjoyable than more recent works such as Paula Spencer and The Woman who Walked into Doors, capturing all the lightheartedness and humor and pathos that makes those tales so powerfully human, endearing and enduring while giving us some new characters and a revisit to some of the old, once again capturing the complexity of evolving Irish society, history and the ordinary yet extraordinary people that inhabit all of the world.

A collection of short stories describing the new immigrants to Ireland - how Irish can they become? A great introduction to the nature of modern Dublin - the Irish barmaid in Boston has become the American barmaid in Dublin.