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Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha: Booker Prize Winner Paperback – January 1, 1995
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It is 1968. Patrick Clarke is ten. He loves Geronimo, the Three Stooges, and the smell of his hot water bottle. He can't stand his little brother Sinbad. His best friend is Kevin, and their names are all over Barrytown, written with sticks in wet cement. They play football, lepers, and jumping to the bottom of the sea. But why didn't anyone help him when Charles Leavy had been going to kill him? Why do his ma and da argue so much, but act like everything is fine? Paddy sees everything, but he understands less and less. Hilarious and poignant, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha charts the triumphs, indignities, and bewilderment of a young boy and his world, a place full of warmth, cruelty, confusion and love.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Books
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 1995
- Grade level12 and up
- Reading age18 years and up
- Dimensions5.1 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches
- ISBN-100140233903
- ISBN-13978-0140233902
- Lexile measure490L
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Throughout the novel, Paddy teeters on the nervous verge of adolescence. In one scene, Paddy tries to make his little brother's hot water bottle explode, but gives up after stomping on it just one time: "I jumped on Sinbad's bottle. Nothing happened. I didn't do it again. Sometimes when nothing happened it was really getting ready to happen." Paddy Clarke senses that his world is about to change forever--and not necessarily for the better. When he realizes that his parents' marriage is falling apart, Paddy stays up all night listening, half-believing that his vigil will ward off further fighting. It doesn't work, but it is sweet and sad that he believes it might. Paddy's logic may be fuzzy, but his heart is in the right place. --Jill Marquis
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Penguin Books (January 1, 1995)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0140233903
- ISBN-13 : 978-0140233902
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Lexile measure : 490L
- Grade level : 12 and up
- Item Weight : 8.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,143,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #909 in Comedic Dramas & Plays
- #10,077 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books)
- #49,796 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

Roddy Doyle is the author of eight novels, a collection of stories, and Rory & Ita, a memoir of his parents. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. He lives and works in Dublin.
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Doyle's book is a marvel not because of a particularly ambitious plot but rather because he captures the fickle nature of pre-adolescence as experienced by the pre-adolescent. I don't say this to belittle the family drama the eponymous character lives through. However, the drama is especially compelling only because we get a truly believable stream of consciousness narrative that magnifies the banality of it all in much the same way it would be magnified in any child's mind.
Stream of consciousness narratives can be difficult to follow at times. Even though this one, like many others, is chronologically non-linear, it is not willfully opaque. It moves authentically through Paddy's days with his friends and schoolmates, juxtaposing his peer relationships with his family ones.
Doyle's book is a pleasure to read, and stylistically brilliant. There is every reason pick it up. And pair Black Swan Green with this one, not Catcher in the Rye.
Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2023
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