- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Knopf Canada; 1st edition (Sep 14 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0676976875
- ISBN-13: 978-0676976878
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.3 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 726 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #787,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Doyle stumbles somewhat in this sequel to his excellent 1999 bestseller, A Star Called Henry. Beginning with Irish revolutionary Henry Smart's arrival in New York City in 1924, the story follows Henry's subsequent adventures in advertising, bootlegging, pornography, unlicensed dentistry and keeping ahead of the former associates who'd like to see him eat a lead sandwich. After encroaching too much on a mobster's turf—and getting lucky with another powerful fellow's kept lady—Henry hightails it to Chicago, where he becomes the unofficial manager of a young Louis Armstrong. Though serendipitously reunited with his beloved wife and the daughter he's never met while trying to rob her employer's house, Henry soon heads back to New York to help Louis make it big. While just as brash and lively as Doyle's earlier novels, this one isn't nearly as focused; the dialogue-heavy narrative is interspersed with shifts in setting, time and plot, and characters appear and disappear with little consequence, their spoken parts hasty, repetitive and often perplexing. Worse, Doyle takes Henry Smart's charm for granted; readers unfamiliar with his previous adventures may roll their eyes at his arrogance and incessant sexual encounters. There's just too much material; any of the novel's numerous strands could have been fleshed out into its own book. That said, the novel is still a lot of improbable fun.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Times may be tough in 1920s New York, but for ex-IRA assassin Henry Smart, Ellis Island seems like heaven on earth. In this ebullient continuation of the epic that began with the 2000 best-seller A Star Called Henry, Dublin-born Smart leaves behind his loving wife (whom he still calls Miss O'Shea) and infant daughter to start life anew. Donning a pearl gray fedora and a snappy suit, Henry finds a job as a sandwich-board ad man and complements his earnings by selling the bootleg liquor tucked inside the placards. As he mingles with gangsters and dolls, Henry keeps a watchful eye out for the "hard men" who know about the death warrant issued for him on the other side of the Atlantic. When his overly enterprising ways enrage his superiors, Henry flees to Chicago, where he embraces the emerging jazz scene and becomes trumpeter Louis Armstrong's right-hand man. In an era when skin color dictates status, Smart's responsibilities are clear: "My purpose was my whiteness, and my willingness to walk it beside Louis." The two return to Harlem, where the soaring music scene makes Smart's heart sing. But the past forever haunts Henry, who holds out hope for a reunion with true love O'Shea. Booker Prize-winning novelist and screenwriter Doyle displays his trademark sensitivity and wit in a tale full of adventure, passion, and prose as punchy as a Satchmo riff. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2.9 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
O Stop This Thing..., Dec 28 2004
By Charity "charity123" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Oh Play That Thing (Volume 2 of The Last Roundup) (Hardcover)
After such a brilliant start to his trilogy with 'A Star Called Henry', Doyle disappoints. Henry in my mind is a character that must remain forever young, daring, charismatic; not a poor, trodden, maimed, middle-aged man who, despite living about 20 years in America, ends up in pretty much the exact state in which he was in at the end of the first book. While some of the sense of adventure still clearly remains, I finished the book somewhat disappointed. Doyle's writing was often confusing; he seems to think that endless dialogues will compensate for his lack of even a few sentences to establish ambiance. Characters, while vivid, did not carry quite the same power as they did in 'A Star Called Henry'. Flashbacks, in which excerpt from the former are repeated, stand out as better writing than the stuff that surrounds it. And, as I said, Henry, by the end of the novel, has grown too much in too short a space. A 300-page book made our hero age nearly 25 years, when his every adventure could be made into a separate book. A beginning that held potential; but Henry, who has slept with about every woman in town despite promising to only truly love his wife has become a man who is impertinent, but not charmingly so. A young fighting Irish hero, in a very short space, becomes an old, depressingly beat, and almost - gasp - dull man.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Oh, say it ain't so!, Feb 13 2006
By Tway - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Oh Play That Thing (Volume 2 of The Last Roundup) (Hardcover)
I was mesmerized by A Star Called Henry, so I expected the same passionate, magical, heartbreaking storytelling with Oh, Play That Thing. Instead, I found myself disconnected, confused, incredulous, and downright disappointed much of the time.The writing itself is incredible, and Henry is still the hero who alternately flutters and tears apart your heart, but the plot is just about impossible to follow - or believe. Henry goes from one over-the-top situation to the next, and the coincidences leave you scratching your head. And his incredible, complicated, timeless love for his wife - which drove the plot and the pace of the first novel - takes the backseat much of the time. Yes, Henry is far away and yes, he is a Casanova with an unquenchable thirst, but he conveniently leaves all that passion and pain behind, save for the occasional line or two that Roddy Doyle seems to offer up to forgive Henry's forgetting.
In the end, I felt like I'd missed half the points the novel was trying to make, and Henry Smart became more of a cheap pawn than a complex character. He became a whole new, impossible-to-believe character, with barely a link to the boy we first met. I can't imagine where the next novel will take us, although it looks like Henry will see his name in lights after all. I'd trade in all that flash for one more dirty, gritty story of the real MacCoy.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding Story in the finest Irish (and American) Traditions, Nov 1 2008
By W. A. Peterson - Published on Amazon.com
"Oh, Play That Thing," is the followup to "A Star Called Henry" and is entirely complementary to the first part of this three part trilogy. I can't wait for part 3. The characters in these first two parts of the trilogy are unique but oh so fitting to the best (and worst) of Irish and American cultures and mythology. Love the tie in with Louis Armstrong, New York, Chicago, and other places (not to spoil the story before you read it). Roddy Doyle has a great ear and ability to write dialogue fitting of places and time. He combines the toughness of life with the greatness of life in people who live it fully and then some. Really enjoyed this book, and before it A Star Called Henry and can't wait for the next and final in the trilogy.
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