The Guts

Name: The Guts
Brand: Penguin Random House
Availability: InStock
Author: Roddy Doyle
ISBN: 9780698151758

Author: Roddy Doyle

Narrator: Laurence Kinlan

Unabridged: 10 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 01/23/2014

Categories: Fiction, Small Town & Rural, Family Life, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Jimmy Rabbitte of The Commitments returns in the triumphant new novel from the Booker Prize–winning author

The distinct wit and lively, authentic dialogue that are the hallmarks of Roddy Doyle’s fiction are on a full display as he reintroduces Jimmy Rabbitte in this follow-up to his beloved debut novel The Commitments.

In the 1980s Jimmy Rabbitte formed the Commitments, a ragtag, blue-collar collective of Irish youths determined to bring the soul music stylings of James Brown and Percy Sledge to Dublin. Time proves a great equalizer for Jimmy as he’s now approaching fifty with a loving wife, four kids, and a recent cancer diagnosis that leaves him feeling shattered and frightened.

Jimmy still loves his music, and he still loves to hustle—his new thing is finding old bands and then finding the people who loved them enough to pay for their resurrected albums. As he battles his illness on his path through Dublin, Jimmy manages to reconnect with his own past, most notably Commitments guitarist Liam “Outspan” Foster and the still beautiful backup vocalist Imelda Quirk. Jimmy also learns the trumpet, reunites with his long-lost brother, and rediscovers the joys of fatherhood.

An immensely funny and poignant novel, The Guts captures friendship, family, the power of music, the specter of death, and the zeal for life.

About The Author

Roddy Doyle is the author of nine novels, two short story collections, and a nonfiction book. In 1993 he won the Booker Prize for his novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. His 1991 novel, The Van, was a Booker Prize finalist. He lives in Dublin.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Karina on June 28, 2013

This is stonkingly good - I think I woke the neighbours this morning, I was laughing that hard. Jimmy Rabbitte (jnr) is now 47, happily married with kids, and has just been diagnosed with bowel cancer - then bumps into the still gorgeous Imelda Quirke from their days in The Committments, fadó fadó........more

Goodreads review by Nancy on March 28, 2014

Whew! I finished my Roddy Doyle 4-book marathon with this one, although I will definitely be back to read more of his work in the near future. My review is a little long, so I apologize in advance. I knew going into this novel that the main character here has been diagnosed with bowel cancer, and I w......more

Goodreads review by Ryan on June 09, 2017

Rabbite At Rest. It's interesting how Doyle's 'Barrytown' trilogy, like The Simpsons, started off being all about the son and became all about the father. Over a quarter of a century after he first appeared in The Commitments,m it's nice to see Jimmy Rabbitte Junior take centre stage again. The last......more

Quotes

"Doyle's Jimmy Rabbitte reappears, dealing with cancer, mortality, and love. . . . I was undone by the emotional clarity of the writing itself, and by the calm, but never static, way Doyle has of presenting a scene."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Quintessential Doyle. . . . both laugh-out-loud funny and disarmingly moving . . . [It] contains some of the snappiest, wittiest, most believable, and exhilarating dialogue in fiction. . . . To make a story about middle-aged men battling cancer a largely effervescent lark without a trace of sentimentality is a notable achievement."
--The Boston Globe

"Roddy Doyle is a great master of dialogue, which is his narrative medium-- the main way he tells. And it's impossible for anyone, I would think, not to laugh out loud at the wit and shock of it. . . . If [The Guts] has a unifying theme, it is the awareness of death, and the fresh perspective on life thrown by its advancing shadow."
--The New York Review of Books

"Doyle's collected works are a superlative study of family, aging, and the dignity of the working class--and his latest novel is a worthy addition. . . . The novel revisits an area Doyle explored previously in The Van: what it means to be a man at middle age."
--The Atlantic