While he’s not rich, he has managed to survive the collapse of the Irish economy via an online business (which he founded with his wife, selling long-lost Irish punk songs as downloads. He’s married to the lovely Aoife and has four kids - all named after soul singers. Jimmy Rabbitte, the man who invented and managed the soul band The Commitments in The Commitments, is now 47. The Guts is set in modern-day Dublin - there are references to Whitney Houston’s death, boxer Katie Taylor‘s gold medal in the London Olympics, and Christy Moore, Sigur Ros and The Cure playing the Electric Picnic, which suggests the date is 2012. Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy - The Commitments (published in 1987), The Snapper (1990) and The Van (1991) - is one of my favourite ever volumes, so I was falling over myself with excitement when I heard he had a new novel out that turned the “trilogy” into a “quartet”. Fiction – hardcover Jonathan Cape 328 pages 2013.
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