I can safely say most everyone knows about Doyle's first novel, The Commitments. It was made into a pretty good movie and had a phenomenal soundtrack. I am willing to bet more people know the music than the book or the movie combined. The Snapper is like an episode of Seinfeld where a whole lot of nothing happens to an ordinary group of people. The plot centers around the fact Jimmy Rabbitte's sister is pregnant. If you remember Jimmy Rabbitte, Jr., he was the guy who started the band, the Commitments. He wanted to be a manager of someone famous in the worst way. Remember how, in The Commitments he was always practicing his interview? In The Snapper his dreams have changed slightly. Still looking for fame, he now wants to be a disc jockey. But enough about Jimmy Jr. This time he isn't the lead character. He is firmly in the background while his sister, Sharon Rabbitte, takes center stage as a twenty year old unwed mother-to-be. Like The Commitments, the dialogue carries the story. Family members and friends all try to guess the baby daddy. I felt bad for Sharon's highly emotional and confused father. One day embarrassed about who knocked up his daughter, the next reading everything he can about what she is going through. The Snapper gives a spot-on account of the good, bad, and ugly elements of pregnancy. ( )

The Snapper by Roddy Doyle

This slim tome is the second novel in Roddy Doyle's Barrytown trilogy. It was preceded by [The Commitments] and followed by [The Van]. All three books focus on life in the working class section of Dublin known as Barrytown. Members of the Rabbitte family are principal characters in all three books.

[The Snapper] tells the tale of Sharon Rabbitte, a single 20-year-old living with her parents and five siblings. Even more, it tells how Sharon's "situation" upends her father's life. The book opens:

--You're wha'? said Jimmy Rabbitte Sr.

He said it loudly.

--You heard me, said Sharon.

Jimmy Jr was upstairs in the boys' room doing his D.J. practice. Darren was in the front room watching Police Acadeny II on the video. Les was out. Tracy and Linda, the twins, were in the front room annoying Darren. Veronica, Mrs Rabbitte, was sitting opposite Jimmy Sr at the kitchen table.

Sharon was pregnant and she'd just told her father that she thought she was. She'd told her mother earlier, before dinner.

--Oh –my Jaysis, said Jimmy Sr.

He looked at Veronica. She looked tired. He looked at Sharon again.

--That's shockin', he said.

More shocking is Sharon's refusal to divulge the identity of the father. She does want to stay at home, she does want to have and keep the baby, but she won't won't WON'T say who father is. Life proceeds. The siblings want to know. Sharon's girl friends want to know. Jimmy Sr's pals want to know. Everybody is v-e-r-y curious. And Sharon is mum.

Doyle's stories usually play out in conversations. Jimmy Sr retires after dinner each day to a nearby pub to share a pint wi' th' lads and verbally spar with them. He spars verbally with his children, with his wife, with neighbors. At first, he asserts that if Sharon doesn't care who the father is, why should he? But he can't hold that stance, which infuriates the young mother-to-be. When the father's identity comes out, Sharon denies he's the one, demanding that the family accept her assertion that the father is an unknown Spanish sailor. Jimmy Sr wrangles with Sharon almost to the moment of delivery.

And in the meantime, he dices with Jimmy Jr who is loudly practicing to be a DJ, Darren who wants a new bicycle, Les who is looking for a job, with Veronica who is being driven to distraction trying to costume the twins for their shifting desires to be cheerleaders, then ballroom dancers, then…

It's all good. An easy read (but for some Irish slang that's obscure), and to me a lot of laughs.

Meh. I read this because of a weekend trip to Dublin, but I must say that my expectations were a lot higher. Didn't laugh out loud once. Sure, it was kind of funny at times and laughing at serious matters usually is my cup of tea but I don't know what was missing. ( )

bookshelves: winter-20132014, radio-4, published-1990, fradio, britain-ireland, dublin, families, lifestyles-deathstyles, teh-demon-booze
Recommended for: BBC Radio Listeners
Read from December 15 to 20, 2013

BBC Blurb: Barrytown is buzzing with speculation. Sharon Rabbitte is pregnant and she's not telling anyone who the father is. But with tongues wagging and rumours mounting, just how long will it take everyone to work out who in Barrytown is the "snapper's" Da?

The second of Roddy Doyle's Barrytown series of novels, all to be dramatized by BBC Radio 4. After a drunken encounter at the soccer club do, Sharon is pregnant and much to the annoyance to her dad, Jimmy, refusing to name the baby's father. So when Jimmy gets wind that it might be someone close to home all hell breaks loose.

The cast includes David Wilmot as Jimmy Snr (Ripper Street, Anna Karenina) and Aoife Duffin as Sharon (Moone Boy.)

Written by Roddy Doyle Dramatised by Eugene O'Brien Producer: Gemma McMullan Director: Eoin O'Callaghan.

The theme music

Times change, yeah, but do we have to keep up with them.

2. Everyone in Barrytown knows Sharon is pregnant, but to Jimmy's annoyance, she refuses to reveal who the father is.

3. Doris Burgess receives a startling letter from her husband and marches to the Rabbitte's house demanding the truth.

4. George Burgess confronts Sharon; he has come up with a plan for the baby's future.

5. Sharon has decided she is leaving home, and Jimmy knows that if he wants to keep peace with his wife Veronica, he has to persuade Sharon to stay. ( )

Unmarried, twenty, and living at home, Sharon Rabbitte is pregnant. That's no mystery to her large Irish family. The father is. Written almost entirely in crackling dialogue, The Snapper tells how her family reacts while trying to navigate their own lives. A lively story with voices that dance with the musicality of Irish banter. ( )