A Star Called Henry (the Last Roundup)

ISBN: 9780099284482
Author: Roddy Doyle
Description:
Born in the Dublin slums of 1901, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores, Henry Smart has to grow up fast. By the time he can walk he's out robbing and begging, often cold and always hungry, but a prince of the streets. By Easter Monday, 1916, he's fourteen years old and already six-foot-two, a soldier in the Irish Citizen Army. A year later he's ready to die for Ireland again, a rebel, a Fenian and a killer. With his father's wooden leg as his weapon, Henry becomes a Republican legend - one of Michael Collins' boys, a cop killer, an assassin on a stolen bike. From the Publisher 'Doyle at his best- his portrait of turn-of-the-century Dublin's dark side is masterful. There is a Dickensian richness to language and character' The Times About the Author Roddy Doyle:Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of six acclaimed novels. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Excerpted from A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. My mother looked up at the stars. There were plenty of them up there. She lifted her hand. It swayed as she chose one. Her finger pointed. There's my little Henry up there. Look it. I looked, her other little Henry sitting beside her on the step. I looked up and hated him. She held me but she looked up at her twinkling boy. Poor me beside her, pale and red-eyed, held together by rashes and sores. A stomach crying to be filled, bare feet aching like an old, old man's. Me, a shocking substitute for the little Henry who'd been too good for this world, the Henry God had wanted for himself. Poor me. And poor Mother. She sat on that step and other crumbling steps and watched her other babies joining Henry. Little Gracie, Lil, Victor, another little Victor. The ones I remember. There were others, and early others sent to Limbo; they came and went before they could be named. God took them all. He needed them all up there to light the night. He left her plenty, though. The ugly ones, the noisy ones, the ones He didn't want - the ones that would never stay fed. Poor Mother. She wasn't much more than twenty when she gazed up at little twinkling Henry but she was already old, already decomposing, ruined beyond repair, good for some more babies, then finished. Poor Mammy. Her own mother was a leathery old witch, but was probably less than forty. She poked me, as if to prove that I was there. You're big, she said. She was accusing me, weighing me, planning to take some of me back. Always wrapped in her black shawl, she always smelt of rotten meat and herrings - it was a sweat on her. Always with a book under the shawl, the complete works of Shakespeare or something by Tolstoy. Nash was her name but I don't know what she called herself before she married her dead husband. She'd no Christian name that I ever heard. Granny Nash was all she ever was. I don't know where she came from; I don't remember an accent. Wrapped in her sweating black shawl, she could have crept out of any century. She might have walked from Roscommon or Clare, pushed on by the stench of the blight, walked across the country till she saw the stone-eating smoke that lay over the piled, sagging fever-nests that made our beautiful city, walked in along the river, deeper and deeper, into the filth and shit, the noise and the money. A young country girl, never kissed, never touched, she was scared, she was thrilled. She turned around and back around and saw the four corners of hell. Her heart cried for Leitrim but her tits sang for Dublin. She got down on her back and yelled at the sailors to form a queue. Frenchmen, Danes, Chinamen, the Yanks. I don't know. A young country girl, a waif, just a child, aching for food. She'd left her family dead in a ditch, their chops green with grass juice, their bellies set to explode in the noonday sun. I don't know any of this. She might have been Dublin-bred. Or she might have been foreign. A workhouse orphan, a nun gone wrong. Transported from Australia, too ugly and bad for Van Diemen's Land. I don't know. She'd become a witch by the time I saw her. Always with her head in a book, looking for spells. She shoved her face forward with ancient certainty, knew every thought behind my eyes. She knew how far evil could drop. She stared at me with her cannibal's eyes and I had to dash down to the privy. Her eyes slammed the door after me. And what do I know about poor Mother? Precious little. I know that she was Melody Nash. A beautiful name, promising so much. I know that she was born in Dublin and that she lived on Bolton Street. She worked in Mitchell's rosary bead factory on Marlborough Street. They made the beads out of cows' horns. All day, six days a week, sweating, going blind for God and Mitchell. Putting the holes in the beads for Jesus. Hands bleeding, eyes itching. Before she walked into my father. Melody Nash. I think of the name and I don't see my mother. Melody melody. She skips, she laughs, her black eyes shine happy. Her blue-black hair dances, her feet lick the cobbles. Her teacher is fond of her, she's a fast learner. She's quick at the adding, her letters curl beautifully. She has a great future, she'll marry a big noise. She'll have good meat each day and a house with a jacks. Out of the way, here comes melody Melody, out of the way, here comes melody Melody. What age was she when she learnt the truth, when she found out that her life would have no music? The name was a lie, a spell the witch put on her. She was twelve when she walked into Mitchell's bead factory and she was sixteen when she walked into my father. Four years in between, squinting, counting, shredding her hands, in a black hole making beads. Melody melody rosary beads. They sang as they worked. Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me. Mitchell wanted them to pray. Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee. Was she gorgeous? Did her white teeth gleam as she lifted her head with the other girls? Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song. The woman on the step had no teeth, nothing gleamed. Like me, she was never a child. There were no children in Dublin. Promises weren't kept in the slums. She was never beautiful.

Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
Genre: General
Rating: Not yet rated

Listed Copies of this Book

Details	Price	See More	Buy
Condition: Normal Seller: benjemindogg (No ratings yet)	£0.50 £2.35 (inc p&p)
About this copy: Book in good condition but slightly rubbed around edges

Some Other Books by this Author

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha HaIn Roddy Doyle's Booker Prize-winning novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, an Irish lad named Paddy rampages through the streets of Barrytown with a pack of like-minded hooligans, playing cowboys and Indians, etching their names...
No. of listed copies: 1
Oh, Play That ThingThis sprawling tale follows Henry Smart, hero of A Star called Henry, to the USA, where he assumes many aliases and wins a number of pliant women to support him. He teams up with Louis Armstrong. Don't want to spoil your...
No. of listed copies: 1
The VanJimmy Rabbitte is unemployed and rapidly running out of money. His best friend Bimbo has been made redundant at the company where he has worked for many years. The two old friends are out of luck and out of options. That...
No. of listed copies: 0
The SnapperFunny book by the bestselling author - contains swearing
No. of listed copies: 1
The Woman Who Walked Into DoorsBy the author of ""Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha"", winner of the 1993 Booker Prize, this is the life history of Paula Spencer - her contented childhood, her romance with Charlo, and her sad marriage. It is the story of a workin...
No. of listed copies: 3

see all books for Roddy Doyle

Other Books in this Genre

A Little Learning by Caro Fraser
Love can drive a normal woman to extremes...Carla Tradescant hates her husband Alan's moustache. She hates the...
No. of listed copies: 1
Racing Toward 2001 The Forces Shaping America's Religious Future by Russell Chandler
Get ready for the year 2001 with the book that reveals the powerful forces shaping America's religious future....
No. of listed copies: 1
Number Ten by Sue Townsend
Jack Spratt is a policeman on the door of Number Ten. When the Prime Minister decides that the only way to get...
No. of listed copies: 2
Glue by Irvine Welsh
Glue" is the story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh schemes, and about the loyalties, the experiences ...
No. of listed copies: 1
Taken by Bernardine Kennedy
Jessica Patterson's comfortable, settled life seems idyllic and her marriage perfect. She met American Sheldon...
No. of listed copies: 0

See all listings in General

REVIEWS

This book has not yet been rated