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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.Soon, his father has all but abandoned the growing family, and at 9 Henry is on his own, running wild in the streets, thieving to stay alive. Depressing as all this sounds, Doyle has invested his narrator with such an appetite for life, and rendered him so resolutely unsorry for himself, that it seems almost insulting to pity him.
By the time he is 14, Henry has become a soldier in the new Irish Republican Army and in one long and harrowing chapter, we view the events of the Easter Rising of 1916 from his position in the thick of it. It's not a pretty sight by any means, as the populace is divided in its support and various factions within the Republican Army threaten to splinter and annihilate one another before the British even get there. When the shooting starts, Henry aims not at the British but at the store windows across the street. "I shot and killed all that I had been denied, all the commerce and snobbery that had been mocking me and other hundreds of thousands behind glass and locks, all the injustice, unfairness and shoes--while the lads took chunks out of the military." Though the uprising is eventually crushed and the leaders executed, Henry escapes to live--and fight--another day.
In previous books such as The Barrytown Trilogy, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, and The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Doyle has established himself as one of the premiere chroniclers of modern Irish life. With A Star Called Henry, he works his singular magic on the past. What's more, this is only volume one of the Last Roundup, so it looks like we haven't seen the last of Henry Smart. And that's a very good thing, indeed. --Alix Wilber --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
EXTRAORDINARY READING AND STORY,
By
This review is from: Star Called Henry (Audio Cassette)
This extraordinarily rich tale of young Henry Smart, from his birth in 1901 to age 20, is made even richer by the lyric reading of Roddy Doyle.Henry, son of a one-legged bouncer and hit-man, is the couple's third child and the first to live through infancy. He suffers the quintessential poverty-stricken Irish childhood described rather frequently in current fiction, but he is also a "star" in his mother's eyes. Forsaken by his father before his double digit year, young Henry is on his own and on the streets. Yet he contains such a zest for life and is imbued with so strong a heart that he becomes one of the more endearing protagonists in recent years.
5.0 out of 5 stars
I love this book,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Star Called Henry (Audio Cassette)
This one makes Angela's Ashes sound as fascinating as your t4.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Passionate Revolution,
By Cat Lyons (San Fransisco, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Star Called Henry (Paperback)
"Brawling and lyrical...In everychapter Doyle mixes high, historical romance with low, earthy humor...Doyle vividly portrays the wild passions of an Irish Everyman...[and] the birth of the modern Irish nation." This review from Time magazine sums up what an incredible book this is.It will keep you at the edge of your seat. Keeping you interested, and the amazingly describes in such fine detail. The war comes alive in your mind while you read, and Henry Smart shows how hard it is to be key role in the revolution which brought Ireland to wear it is today. ...Henry is the type of guy your mother warns you about, he is the stunning, witty, handsome boy next door, that all the girls are in love with, the motorcylce rebel outside your school, he speaks of his passion for sex, adventure, intimacy, women and killing. If you love ecstacy, excitement, adventure, and intimacy in you books you will love :A Star Called Henry".
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