The Deportees

Roddy Doyle’s first ever collection of stories.

For the past few years Roddy Doyle has been writing stories for Metro Eireann, a newspaper started by, and aimed at, immigrants to Ireland. Each of the stories took a new slant on the immigrant experience, something of increasing relevance and importance in today’s Ireland.

The stories range from Guess Who’s Coming to the Dinner, where a father who prides himself on his open-mindedness when his daughters' talk about sex, is forced to confront his feelings when one of them brings home a black fella, to a terrifying ghost story, The Pram, in which a Polish nanny grows impatient with her charge’s older sisters and decides – in a phrase she has learnt – to ‘scare them shitless’.

Most of the stories are very funny – in 57% Irish Ray Brady tries to devise a test of Irishness by measuring reactions to Robbie Keane’s goal against Germany in the 2002 World Cup, Riverdance and ‘Danny Boy’ – others deeply moving.

And best of all, in the title story itself, Jimmy Rabbitte, the man who formed The Commitments, decides it’s time to find a new band, and this time no White Irish need apply. Multicultural to a fault, The Deportees specialise not in soul music this time, but the songs of Woody Guthrie.

Author Biography: Roddy Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. He is the author of eight acclaimed novels and Rory & Ita, a memoir about his parents. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.