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The Dead Republic [Paperback]

Roddy Doyle (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Book Description

Publication Date: 7 April 2011

We last saw Henry Smart, his leg severed in an accident with a railway boxcar, crawl into the Utah desert to die - only to be discovered by John Ford, who's there shooting his latest Western.

The Dead Republic opens in 1951. Henry is returning to Ireland for the first time since his escape in 1922. With him are the stars of Ford's latest film, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and the famous director himself, who has tried to suck the soul out of Henry and turn it into Hollywood gold-dust.

Ten years later Henry is in Dublin, working in Ratheen as a school caretaker. When he is caught in a bomb blast, he loses his leg for the second time. He is claimed as a hero, and before long Henry will discover he has other uses too, when the peace process begins in deadly secrecy...

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Product details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; First printing of this edition edition (7 April 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0099546892
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099546894
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 2.2 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 43,998 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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› Visit Amazon's Roddy Doyle Page
Roddy Doyle
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Product Description

Review

"Brilliant" (Mail on Sunday )

"Told with pace and verve and bitter, black humour... Magnificent" (Financial Times )

"Doyle's tenth novel might be called The Dead Republic, but its vision of what Smart calls "the green thing" is as alive as any he has given us" (Independent on Sunday )

"There is lovely, brutal detail, as well as a grand swoop over the timeline of Ireland and America, just like the kind of film they just don't make anymore" (Financial Times )

"This is Ireland's most famous living writer tackling one of the most crucial periods in history" (Guardian )

Book Description

A magnificent, epic novel that explores the history of modern Ireland - the sequel to the bestselling A Star Called Henry and Oh, Play That Thing.
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4.3 out of 5 stars
9 reviews
4.3 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars The Experiences Of An Aging Rebel 15 April 2010
By b
Format:Hardcover
This is the third volume of Doyle's trilogy about Henry Smart, the IRA fighter whose experiences in the first two volumes of the trilogy describes his early years as a political rebel experiencing the violence of the Irish independence struggle and his subsequent flight to America and his encounters with jazz legends. The third volume takes us from the 1940s to much more recent times as Henry Smart returns to Ireland and finds himself once more caught up in the republican conflict.

The first section of the book deals with his experience working with John Ford on the development of The Quiet Man, whilst you have to admire the detail of Doyle's historial research, I did feel that this element of Henry's life lacked the energy and pace of the previous novels. The writer seemed to be more interesting in the process of moviemaking and the Hollywood treatment given to Henry's story and it took a while for his character to take hold of the narrative and to give it momentum.

As the novel develop, Henry finds work as a school caretaker and a gardener, is somewhat implausibly reunited with the love of his life and becomes a figurehead for the republican movement as a result of mistaken idenitiy. The novel contains pace and tempo in its latter stages but never really reaches the brilliance of the first two books in the trilogy.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars "I knew where I was going and I knew what I was going to do. I was going to kill John Ford." 12 May 2010
By Mary Whipple HALL OF FAME TOP 100 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
(3.5 stars) Thirty-five years after Henry Smart became one of the heroes of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, Henry is in Hollywood, where he is an "IRA consultant" to director John Ford, who plans to make a film about Henry's life. The making of this film and its aftermath become a major focus of this final novel in the "The Last Round-Up" trilogy which author Roddy Doyle had intended to reflect Ireland's history from its independence to the present day. A STAR CALLED HENRY, the first of the series, establishes Henry's background as a poverty-stricken child and the reasons for his willingness to put his life on the line in the General Post Office takeover in 1916, when he was only fourteen, and follows him through the War for Independence from 1919 - 1922. The second book of the trilogy, OH, PLAY THAT THING, takes Henry, on the lam from mobsters in Ireland in 1922, to Chicago and eventually Hollywood.

At the outset of this third novel, Henry comes into contact with director John Ford, who begins talks with Henry about a film he plans to make about Henry's life--"The Quiet Man." Ford wants to celebrate Ireland's beauty (and sell more tickets) by removing all references to the War for Independence and the IRA. "No one gets shot in the back. No one gets shot at all," Ford declares, though this is not the Ireland that Henry has seen up close and personal as an IRA assassin. When Henry abandons the project, Ford goes on to make "The Quiet Man" with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara--a sentimental romance celebrating the Ireland that Ford and many other Irish-Americans want to remember. In Part II, Henry, now fifty, has returned to Ireland, where he works as a caretaker at a school for underprivileged boys and lives a quiet life, until he is eventually "called" again by the IRA.... Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 stars Historical truths 15 Mar 2013
By Bill Kay
Format:Kindle Edition
Doyle has the ability to cover a wide ranging topic in a way that teaches without preaching.
A great achievement!
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3.0 out of 5 stars Not RD's best 13 Feb 2013
By Rabbyl
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I loved the first in this series but neither 2nd or 3rd have met that standard. Had to get it to complete the story
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5.0 out of 5 stars Henry Smart part three 18 Jan 2013
By Mick Read
Format:Paperback
Roddy Doyle completes his Henry Smart trilogy, bringing him back to Ireland in the company of John Ford who has set his mind to telling Henry's rebellious story in the cinema. If you have not read the previous two instalments, and especially A Star Called Henry, then you will have trouble relating to much of The Dead Republic. If you are up to date, then Doyle has completed the circle admirably, with much humour and not a little grit.

Henry epitomises the romantic notion of a rebel with a cause, a core of steel, the love of a feisty woman and the world's biggest don't-give-a-damn attitude. One gets the distinct impression that his frustration with the ever-complex political landscape would be most easily resolved if Henry could simply shoot anyone with whom he had a slight disagreement.

Back in Ireland, Doyle once more displays a skill with native dialogue that few can match, one can hear it, rich and ringing, it, more than anything else, speaks of place and time and history and the hope that never goes away.

Henry has always been the character who would always silently enthral any dinner party and be the person you would least like to be on the wrong side of, lethal with weapon and word he could cut you dead with either, probably both.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Roddy Doyle`s "The Dead Republic". 25 Oct 2011
By Pontybodkin Pete
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
All good things must come to an end, so they say, and this book rounds off the trilogy with our hero, Henry Smart being rescued from a dry and lonely death in Monument Valley by Henry Fonda who was there filming with John Houston. From there he is courted by Houston who promises to make a film of Henry`s life, but ends up making "The Quiet Man" instead. Smart returns to Ireland for the making of the film and stays on, bitterly disappointed, through the poor quiet times and through the troubles right up to the present day. During this period he is used and abused by all and sundry while being re-united with his wife and with his daughter, but for Henry, nothing is ever as straight forward as it should be. Henry faces his hardest battle against the coming of old age, but Doyle makes you believe that, despite the aches and pains, Henry will go on as long as the water keeps flowing. I enjoyed the first book, "A Star called Henry" best, but once you`ve read that one you`ve got to find out what happens next.
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