Roddy Doyle is so damn good it's scary. This is the 2nd book in the Barrytown Trilogy: The Commitments, The Snapper, The Van. I find that I have foolishly read it first, so must go get The Commitments immediately.
A working class (just barely) Irish family is thrown into confusion when the unmarried, twenty-year-old daughter gets pregnant, and doesn't name a young man to marry. There's some pathos and ick, but mostly love and comedy. Published in 1990, it makes a 2009-era American's hair stand on end with the complete lack of fuss about prenatal vitamins and organic foods, not to mention Baby Einstein. ( )

The Snapper is one novel of Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy. "Snapper" is Irish working class slang for a baby and the book tells the story of an unexpected pregnancy. This novel stands and falls by the authenticity of its dialogue which is so predominant the work almost reads as a playscript. Roddy Doyle's eye for it is unerring. It is a tender, affecting and convincing, as well as a humorous, portrayal of a family that bonds together to deal with the tribulations of working class life.

It was interesting to read this straight after Ulysses, as Roddy Doyle has come out as a big critic of the deification of Joyce. He suggests that Ulysses is overblown and in need of a damn good editor. I'd argue that The Snapper, albeit on a far less grandiose scale, also attempts to achieve the apotheosis of ordinary life, but without any of the classical allusions woven in by Joyce (and, thank heaven, using 800 pages less text). ( )

Vivid characters are the main selling point of this funny little novel. I loved both Sharon and her often-befuddled dad, Jimmy Sr., and I loved the subtext of love and tenderness in their relationship. It was great to read an account of an unplanned pregnancy--indeed, a pregnancy that was the result of a drunken encounter in a parking lot--where the protagonist's primary response wasn't victimhood (though she could have legimately claimed it) but an almost-cheery squaring of the shoulders and "getting on with it." ( )

Doyle, Roddy. The Snapper. Penguin Books, New York, 1990. ( )

Absolutely hilarious. A genuine laugh out loud. ( )