Jazz, gangsters and an Irishman
Roddy Doyle comes to America with 'Oh, Play That Thing'
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A former Irish schoolteacher known for writing about soul music and working class life in Dublin was bound to be setting himself up for criticism when he turned his attention to jazz and gangsters in America.
Booker Prize-winning author Roddy Doyle's previous novels have been set in Ireland. His first "The Commitments" was made into a hit film by Alan Parker in 1991, telling the story of the birth of a soul band in Dublin.
His latest novel, "Oh, Play That Thing," is the second in a trilogy and follows the flawed hero Henry Smart as he flees from his former masters in the Irish Republican Army to America and ends up working for Louis Armstrong in 1920s Chicago.
The book, which went on sale in the United States recently, has received mixed reviews. One paper said it felt like a "research project" compared to previous attempts at the genre, but others raved about Doyle's ability to bring the energy of jazz music to the page.
The first book, "A Star Called Henry," was set in Dublin at the start of the 20th century. Henry, the handsome fast-living son of a one-legged assassin, grew up on the streets and joined the IRA, taking part in the Easter Rising of 1916.
Still in his 20s and ever the wheeler-dealer and ladies' man, Henry arrives at New York's Ellis Island at the start of the second book, treading a well-worn path in both historical and literary terms.
"If you take any subject eventually there's going to be comparisons," Doyle said, reluctant to be compared to Frank McCourt and others who have written about poor immigrants scraping a living in New York.
American reviewers have not been entirely kind to this Irishman who did most of his research from books and spent just days in New York. The Los Angeles Times said: "The novel becomes a tourist in history instead of a native."
"It's remarkable how much you can get from books, maps, photos," Doyle said during a visit to New York, adding that he has tried to avoid reading reviews while he is in America.
"One should never anticipate what the critics or the public reaction to a piece will be because then you curtail what you do," said the bespectacled 46-year-old.
"I wrote books about working-class Dublin and there are people who maintain they're nothing like life in working class Dublin," he added, saying he is used to criticism.
Mixed views of jazz
Where the new book has won praise is in its portrayal of jazz legend Armstrong and his music, which mesmerises Henry in seedy Chicago clubs run by Italian gangsters.
Doyle, who won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize in 1993 for "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha," first hit the big time with a book about music -- "The Commitments" -- but that was about soul.
Doyle says he was never a jazz fan and the idea of making Armstrong a character in his book came from a biography in which there was a line of advice to the great trumpet player when he was about to leave New Orleans for Chicago.
"A man took him aside and said 'If you're going to make it work, get yourself a white man who'll put his hand on your shoulder and say this is my nigger'," Doyle said.
"The horrible wisdom of that -- I thought then and there wouldn't it be great if Henry Smart was that white man."
"There's a snobbery attached to jazz and some of it is utter drivel," he added. "I do like good jazz but I'm reluctant to say I'm a fan."
Henry moves on from Chicago when the Irish hitmen catch up with him, going on the run with his gun-toting wife and former school-teacher Miss O'Shea. They stow away on freight trains criss-crossing the country, begging and stealing to support their two children through the great Depression.
"I don't want to give too much away because I haven't written it yet," Doyle said of the final book in the trilogy.
Still, he said he has had enough of history for now and his next novel, which will not be part of the Henry Smart trilogy, will be set in contemporary Dublin.
The third part of the trilogy can wait, though that too will mean coming home as Henry returns to Ireland.
"I've been eight years working on the other two and Dublin has changed. It's been a long time and I don't want to wait any more before doing something set in Dublin," he said.
"And I don't want to do any research for a while. I'm sick of research," said the former school-teacher.
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