Only vol. owned; based in Dublin, Ireland

"A Star Called Henry" starts brilliantly. In the first part Henry remembers his childhood as a poor boy living in the slums of Dublin in the early 1900s. He narrates it tongue in cheek, unreliable, not sparing any details, but still full of heart and funny. The text is the saddest I have read for some time, but still I laughed out loud quite often.
In the next part, Henry is older and is caught up in the Easter Rising, and the subsequent parts deal with how the Irish revolution plays out and Henry's role in it. I am not writing in more detail to avoid spoilers.
In these parts, Henry is still the cheeky, courageous and overly self-assured person he once was, but I became a bit tired of this after a while and would have liked to see more development. There are a lot of sex scenes and also a lot of violence, and while I understand that this is a part of the story and the characterization, it was a bit too much for me.
The historical details play a big role as well and help paint a vivid picture of the time, although sometimes I got tired of some of the military (or rather paramilitary) aspects.
Still, Henry is one of the most memorable characters I have read about so far. Doyle's usage of language is dazzling, and the dialogues are witty and poignant. I hope to read much more of this writer in the future and am glad that I decided to give him another chance after my teenage self could not appreciate his writing. ( )

"A Star Called Henry" starts brilliantly. In the first part Henry remembers his childhood as a poor boy living in the slums of Dublin in the early 1900s. He narrates it tongue in cheek, unreliable, not sparing any details, but still full of heart and funny. The text is the saddest I have read for some time, but still I laughed out loud quite often.
In the next part, Henry is older and is caught up in the Easter Rising, and the subsequent parts deal with how the Irish revolution plays out and Henry's role in it. I am not writing in more detail to avoid spoilers.
In these parts, Henry is still the cheeky, courageous and overly self-assured person he once was, but I became a bit tired of this after a while and would have liked to see more development. There are a lot of sex scenes and also a lot of violence, and while I understand that this is a part of the story and the characterization, it was a bit too much for me.
The historical details play a big role as well and help paint a vivid picture of the time, although sometimes I got tired of some of the military (or rather paramilitary) aspects.
Still, Henry is one of the most memorable characters I have read about so far. Doyle's usage of language is dazzling, and the dialogues are witty and poignant. I hope to read much more of this writer in the future and am glad that I decided to give him another chance after my teenage self could not appreciate his writing. ( )

Bravura picaresque, an epic of the mundane, vividly evoking the mix of heroic and squalorous that Yeats holds up with his ten-foot pole when he writes about the same era, that of 1916 and the Irish struggle for liberation.

"The Powells.com Interviews" (a collection of, yes, interviews done for the great bookstore's website and published on their imprint in 2000) has a fine interview with Doyle about this book. ( )

⚠️ ***Spoilers ahead***

Some reviews I’ve read compare this book to McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, which I find unfair. This one is clearly a fictional account incorporating true historical material, while the other is a memoir (biography…autobiography? I tend to confuse them) set within that same historical time frame (more or less). Both novels touch upon some very dark and sad aspects of a childhood spent in abject poverty and deprivation, with this one serving as a coming of age story for Ireland as it follows the protagonist, Henry, through life in the streets of Dublin, a soldier in the Irish Rebellion, and a life punctured by the atrocities witnessed (or committed...there’s a scene with cows that horrified me 😳😱) throughout.

Born to a gangster-like father and a mother that became increasingly bereft and mentally unstable with the death of her children, Henry’s life was all about survival…even before he was named, he had already fought the first battle to stay alive: “I was the Baby with No Name. I’d been baptized quickly, on the spot; water had hit my head before mild had gone near the back of my Throat. God waited for no baby in the slums. He took them back as soon as He’d give them, but He threw them away if their souls were still stained. He delivered them soiled but expected them back spotless. It was a race. Each day of life was a fight and a triumph, an endless race to stay a few inches in front of the greedy hand of God. God’s gift, Original Sin, had to be washed away in case God sent another of his gifts – fever, typhoid or whooping cough, smallpox, pneumonia or rats. So I’d been baptized. I was without sin. But I didn’t have a name either.”

One of the most difficult parts to read was the death of his brother, Victor, and how he died: “Dead, dead silence except for the thousands coughing, a steady, terrible beat coming from the rooms about us and the basement areas, children and adults being choked to death by poverty.”
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This was not an easy book to read. I have very limited knowledge (smattering of what I’ve read and not anything specific learned in school) and cannot speak as to how well this story exemplifies the factors (oppression, poverty, socioeconomic stratification, religious differences, etc.) that led to Henry becoming part of the IRA, but man…Mr. Doyle definitely does not mince his words and I, for one, enjoyed the raw and realistic descriptions.
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I have to admit that I did not like Henry though. I get it, I get it! He’s a product of his environment and good grief! If that life had not given him an attachment disorder, nothing would! But, I think there was something ….human…missing that made me not like him. I also struggled a bit with the narrative style and got a little lost when Henry started using pseudonyms. I was also a little distracted by the father’s story. I understand its purpose but felt that it should have either been shortened to then focus on Henry or made longer to get to know the father more.
I had not realized it but this book is part one of “The Last Roundup” series, followed by Oh, Play That Thing and The Dead Republic. Which helps explain my reaction to the ending…I felt like there should have been more coming.
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Overall, I loved his writing style, brutal honesty in the narrative, disliked the character, and would read the sequels if I come across them, but not necessarily go out of my way to find them. However, I am looking forward to reading the other Doyle book I found because I expect the writing to be good! ( )