This book unfortunately was not for me. I got to about 30% and had to give up. Perhaps it was just too heavy for me, and it was not quite what I expected from the synopsis.

As a writer with such a successful back catalogue, it is not surprising that Doyle took the brave step of writing a novel with a bizarre twist. It's not for everyone but predictable it's not and for this alone Doyle must be praised. The setting is in the same vein as his other works and told with the same easy prose which on the surface may seem light-hearted but there are hidden depths. Courageous and stimulating read

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

Smile has all the features for which Roddy Doyle has become famous: the razor-sharp dialogue, the humour, the superb evocation of childhood – but this is in some ways, a novel unlike any he has written before.

.It's an oddly almost dreamy short novel told from the perspective of first person narrator Victor. Victor's story jumps around in time. He tells the story from his 54 year old perspective, now finding himself alone, with only pub mates as his friends and not having written the book he'd meant to write. His back story slowly gets filled in and includes school days spent at a Christian Brothers school, a quiet but loving relationship with his mum and a now defunct but previously intense relationship with celebrity chef Rachel. There's a pervasive sadness to Victor's story. There's also a foreboding edge in the form of a former schoolmate who seems to haunt Victor at the pub. The end is surprising and somehow not surprising, and it ends up turning the story on its head.

Hi,

Thanks so much for giving me access to this title. I read it a little while ago but it was at a point when I had a bit of a break from reviewing. I did take some notes as I was reading but I feel a bit too much time has passed now for me to do proper justice to it. I really enjoyed it though and hope this doesn't deter you from approving me for future titles. I actually ended up buying this book in print as it's one of the best books I've read in recent years.

Thanks,

Kevin.

Reviews of Roddy Doyle’s latest novel, Smile, are taking one of two approaches – focused on style and a brief reference to the plot OR spoilers and trigger warnings.

Although it’s not my usual approach, I’m going with spoilers and trigger warnings (look away if you want).

Smile is the story of Victor Forde – he’s middle-aged, alone for the first time in years, and has just moved into a new apartment. Every evening, he heads to his local pub, Donnelly’s, for a pint. At Donnelly’s he meets Eddie Fitzpatrick, a man who claims to have been at school with him, although Victor can’t recall him. Victor dislikes Fitzpatrick, particularly because he stirs up memories of being taught by the Christian Brothers.

The story switches between the present and Victor’s memories of school; his marriage to Rachel (who became a celebrity); and of his own brief media career on the radio.

So, to the spoilery/triggery bit:

Victor was sexually abused by one of the Brothers at his school and it is his repressed memories of this time, and how he deals with the trauma, that is represented by the character of Fitzpatrick. There are lots of reviews on Goodreads that discuss the ending of this book and the narrative technique that Doyle has used – hunt them down if the conclusion of Smile leaves you thinking ‘What…?’ (it is certainly one of those books that you will want to discuss with another reader).

That was the thing: it wasn’t assault. Not back then… I never thought I was witnessing anything illegal. Even being felt up by a Brother was just bad luck or bad timing.

I’ve included the spoiler so that I can say that Doyle handles these scenes sensitively and with great compassion. He does not take the easy road of simply alluding to what happened to Victor – instead, the brutal truth of his abuse and the repercussions of this trauma are plainly stated and the detail in Victor’s story – that the Head Brother carefully chose his victims – is chillingly realistic.

I’d no big brothers; no one had warned me about him. Never smile back at him. Never get ten out of ten. Never get below five – don’t give him any excuse to keep you back after the bell.

As always with Doyle, the dialogue is flawless. In particular, the scenes in Donnelly’s shine, with the banter between the men sharp and realistic.

– We don’t take it too seriously, said Harry.
– What?
– The golf.
– To avoid the disappointment, said Liam. – The same with everything. That’s what it’s all about now, isn’t is? From here on in. Avoiding disappointment.
– Will you listen to fuckin’ Aristotle.

Equally good are the classroom scenes, where Doyle captures the camaraderie and rivalries between school boys – Everyday was exhausting. Exciting and upsetting.

Overall, the dialogue is done with such ease and carefully metered emotion, you feel like you’re part of the conversation.

I’ll ask Fay in Religion tomorrow, I said. – Excuse me, Brother, are you a c*nt or a zombie?
The lads hid behind a few cars and broke their shites laughing. I was thirteen but I felt seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three.

3/5 Dialogue was first class but I felt a little tricked by the narrative structure.

I received my copy of Smile from the publisher, Random House UK, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Doyle makes storytelling appear effortless, his prose slipping down as easily as one of the pints Victor Forde sups nightly in Donnelly’s, the pub he has decided to make his regular. At fifty-four he’s newly separated and living alone in a small apartment. The area is familiar to him from his youth, but the people he knew aren’t around and he works to get in with a new group of guys in the bar, wanting to be one of the lads again. It’s very different from his life with Rachel, his ex. She built up her “Meals on Heels” business to the point she’s now one of the experts in an Irish Dragon’s Den style programme. Victor is a writer, or was. They were quite the celebrity couple. Back in the day he was an acerbic music journo and then made a name as one of those talking heads whose outspoken opinions on pretty much everything serves to bring controversy and ratings to radio stations. He was working on The Novel, but it never happened for him. Any day now he’s going to start writing again and Doyle is painfully funny on Forde the procrastinating writer. In a notebook he writes, “31/7/14 Girl - fat farmer - Czech. Or Polish. Wake. Sadness. Brother/old girlfriend?”
I’d take it from there. It would become something. A short story. I could feel it in me, written. Just waiting. I was ready for another piss, then bed. I’d text Rachel. Using the notebook - writing a short story and a novel. X. No, I wouldn’t do that. I left the phone on the table, to make sure I didn't do something stupid. I went into the toilet. I came out, I emptied my pockets. I’d lost my phone. I remembered - it was on the table. I remembered why. I sat on the bed.”

A man, Fitzgerald, shows up in Donnelly’s and says he knows him. He’s loud, awkward, dressed in pink, and Victor can’t quite place him even when Fitzgerald tells him they were at school together, both taught by the Christian Brothers. He invokes schoolboy memories, the terror of slagging from the other boys and worse from the Brothers. Fragmented flashbacks of childhood return and Doyle is great at details which bring people alive on the page - speaking about a teacher they nicknamed Super Cool, “We could see inside his briefcase. Sandwiches in tinfoil and a flask; no books, no newspaper.
—Thinks he’s Paul McCartney but he wraps his sambos in tinfoil.
It was true, we decided. Super Cool was trying to look like Paul McCartney.”

Why can’t he place Fitzgerald though, when they have shared so many experiences? Why does he make him feel so uncomfortable?

The novel can be read through as typical Doyle fare - a middle aged bloke reminiscing about childhood, school, his parents, his first love. There’s a bar and a lot of pints. A chorus of guys. Underneath though something is rotten. Those Christian Brothers …

And then there’s a weird twist which blindsided me. I’m still not sure what I think about it. There’s a particular quality about a Roddy Doyle novel which depends on the reader enjoying his portrayals of fictional characters as real people; we believe in them. This tricksy ending leaves us with an inability to trust what we’ve read, which would probably be very neat and satisfying if it rang true. Sadly, it doesn’t. Perhaps it wasn’t supposed to be realistic, but for all its darkness I would have preferred it to go deeper.

I am torn about this book. While it is hailed as a return to form for Robby Doyle I have not read any of his other books so I cannot compare. The writing is fantastic and very immediate and the dialog is razor-sharp and very well observed and leads the narrative. Roddy perfectly captures the essence of Dubliners however there was something lacking for me, there was no real emotional depth to any of the characters, the story itself didn't really go anywhere and the ending seemed to just come out of nowhere. It feels to me as if it would make a very good movie and the ending is thought provoking and touches on things that are not really touched on in the book but they may well be on a re-read as it's the kind of story that will make you want to re-read it now you know the ending. Ultimately this gets a 3 stars from me, I didn't love it and I didn't hate it, I'm not sure how I feel about it. Thanks to NetGalley and Random Publishing UK for the advance read of this which I have only just gotten around to reading.

The thing I like about Roddy Doyle's books is the characters. He is so very good at writing three dimensional, complex characters.
Victore Forde is a lonely man who goes to the pub of an evening for a pint & to read. It is for the companionship of having people around. Along comes Eddie who claims he knows Victor from schooldays & he certainly seems to know enough about Eddie's past. Slowly Victor's story starts to unfold.
This isn't a fast paced book but a slow wander until the end. I felt quite cheated by the ending which was quite rushed and didn't tie up the loose ends. I don't think the author did his story or the characters justice with the ending.
There is no doubt that Doyle is a master storyteller, it is just a shame that this ended so abruptly.
I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.

A book that forces you to think - what if? Mainly, what if you hadn't picked it up and entered another landscape expertly put together by Doyle.

This book got under my skin. I couldn’t stop thinking about it after I finished it. It’s a highly original story and I suspect that Roddy Doyle has written a book that will divide his readers.

I have loved reading Roddy Doyle before. His dialogue is excellent and and I find that the pages just turn so quickly. Smile, the story of a man with secrets, whose marriage to a well-loved minor celebrity has just finished, is no different.

We meet Victor, a minor local radio personality and failed writer, moving into a new flat alone, close to the area he grew up in. The story of how he has found himself in this position is interleaved with his development of his new life.

This includes visiting the local pub, where he bumps into someone who says that he was at school with him. He can't quite remember him but accepts his story, as he knows enough about what went on to be credible. Through conversations with him, we start to learn more about Victor.

From Victor's own telling of his past, we also begin to understand that he does not have a high opinion of himself and that he is very concerned with how people see him. And we learn that Victor is deeply affected by an extremely unpleasant event in the past.

But something more seems wrong with his current life. Something is not right but we don't know quite what it is. For example, we don't know what has happened to finish Victor's relationship with Rachel, a beautiful, successful, loving woman with seemingly infinite patience and love for him. Much seems untold.

I love the way we want to find out what Victor isn't telling us. As I sped through the book, totally absorbed in the story, I could only guess at what it could be.

To tell would, of course, spoil the story. So I will just say that the end really surprised me and not completely in a good way. Hence the loss of one star. But it has made me think I should read the book again. And I think the more I reflect on the book, the more I appreciate what Roddy Doyle does.

In short, a well written, highly imaginative and individual book touching on a very important piece of history.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers of Smile for letting me have a copy of the book in exchange for a fair and honest review

https://www.librarything.com/work/19628942

I'm sorry but I really didn't enjoy this book. I wanted to stop reading after 20% but persevered as the reviews were strong, hoping it would get better.

I found the whole book far too fragmented, slipping in and out of the past and present but not giving you time to adjust to the change. I didn't find any of the characters very likeable and whilst the story was dealing with a very sensitive topic I found it rushed this element of the story, it was a bit like going up a log flume, very slow going up and then before you know it the most interesting part was over so quickly.

I have recently found myself losing faith in the work of Roddy Doyle. but this is changes my ideas about him as a writer.

This has an emotional simplicity which the reader can engage with , the plot isnt forgotten about , and it grabs you by the lapels and makes you want to just read on.

I really enjoyed this novel

This is a book to inspire many a book club discussion. In typical Doyle style, you are swiftly lured into the main character's thoughts, experiences and life by almost lyrical prose. Yet there is a twist to the tale that makes you want to immediately reread the book to be more watchful for the obvious clues which pointed towards it. Hard hitting but totally engaging.

I’m Irish, an avid reader and yet I had never read a Roddy Doyle book until now. I’ve never been a fan of the crude and coarse language and content that I assumed came hand-in-hand with his writing and I couldn’t face reading yet another Irish novel on the harshness of a Catholic upbringing in Dublin in the last century. So, when I heard that Smile was a bit of a departure for Doyle, I thought I should bite the bullet and try it. I dove in blind and found myself both exactly where I had imagined I would be but also pleasantly surprised.

Smile is one of those rare novels that I finished reading but found myself staring at the last page wondering what exactly had just happened. A storytelling experience that made me question both what I had read and what I myself had constructed from the story. Yes, Doyle’s main character Victor narrates the book with exactly the type of language I had expected and he describes a hard and sometimes cruel and abusive childhood, but Victor as a character will stay with me for a long time. Doyle’s dialogue is sharp and real throughout and the book’s characters and sense of place feel exactly right. Smile was uncomfortable to read at times and the ending provides no reassurance for the reader but therein lies it’s magic. A thought-provoking read that I would definitely recommend.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK who provided me with a copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

I've read a few Roddy Doyle books now and enjoyed them all. I love his way with words and the fact that there is always plenty of dialogue, I like that in a book.

This is one of those books that is difficult to review in any depth without spoiling it for others, but here are just a few very general thoughts. There are many of the ingredients you’d expect from a Roddy Doyle book, brilliant banter for one and this is just as entertaining as ever, the pub atmosphere too is spot on. The story seems fairly straightforward to begin with - a middle-aged man at a crossroads in his life, moving back into the area he grew up in, reflecting on his life and all the ‘what if?’ moments. Then a chance meeting in a bar with an old schoolmate stirs up unwelcome memories. So far, not such an unfamiliar scenario. Their relationship is more than a little tense and an inkling of foreboding creeps in.

It starts to go in an unexpected direction towards the end, though by the time I’d come to the absolute end I realised that it had veered off long before and that the ending wasn’t really as unexpected as it seemed. The sort of thing that has you going back to the beginning and skimming through to see if the pointers you now think you remember were really there. Cleverly and carefully constructed. An unsettling, emotionally affecting story and I imagine it would be perfect for reading groups.

Hmmm… Normally I'd say a lot of people were unhelpful in mentioning the 'twist' ending, either in professional or crowd-sourced netgalley reviews. But actually they were almost necessary here, for the promise of something surprising was what kept me with this book at one point. I'd been plodding along for an hour and we really didn't seem to be getting anywhere – it was meandering mundanity, and not what I was signed up for. But the fact the reviews mentioning the 'shock' kept me at it is testament to how much the book hinges on, and relies on, and demands the powerful quirk of the final chapter – without it it's nothing, and a lot of the writing needed to be a lot better to make sure the impatient likes of me were not thinking of ditching it. That, to me, suggests the book isn't as much of a success as it needs to be, and that the format of throwing the average at the page until you unstick it with the outstanding does not make for a coherent, fully valuable novel. To the right reader I can see the impact of the closure here causing a complete reread; to me it certainly lifted the book into three star value – I liked the reveal for telling me I'd been right in sticking with Doyle on this instance. But the fact also remains that a similar idea, dressed as a ghost story and regarding nuclear testing and not what we have here, came to me in a dream when I was in secondary school – further proof this is nowhere near as bravura as people are claiming.

Excellent book in typical wonderful Roddy Doyle style. Very thought provoking and very readable.