Roddy Doyle

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Doyle, Roddy (1958– ), novelist, born in Dublin. His first three novels, The Commitments (1987), The Snapper (1990), and The Van (1991), formed the Barrytown trilogy and describe the turbulent lives of the Rabbitte family in north Dublin: in the first, Jimmy organizes a band to bring ‘soul to the people’; in the second, his sister Sharon has an illegitimate baby; in the third, Jimmy Sr. struggles to survive being made redundant and goes share in a chip van while his wife, Veronica, discovers education. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993, Booker Prize), set in Barrytown in 1968, vividly evokes the childhood world at school, at play, and at home of a 10-year-old boy whose life is overshadowed by the breakdown of his parents' marriage. The Woman Who Walked into Doors (1997) is the powerful, tragic, tough, first-person narration of an alcoholic mother of four, widowed when her violent husband is shot by the Gardai during an armed robbery. Doyle has also written the plays Brownbread (1987) and War (1989). Roy and Ita (2002), his first non-fiction book, is a memoir of his parents from their Dublin childhoods to the present day.