The Snapper

by Roddy Doyle (London: Martin Secker& Warburg, 1990)

“Sharon was pregnant and she’d just told her father that she thought she was. She’d told her mother earlier, before the dinner. –Oh –my Jaysis, said Jimmy Sr.”

The Snapper is the second book in Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown trilogy, about the poor working class Rabbitte family of Dublin. Twenty-year-old Sharon Rabbitte is pregnant, unmarried, working in the local grocery store and still living at home. She eventually works up the courage to tell her family and friends about the baby but keeps the father’s identity a secret – much to the consternation of her own father, Jimmy Senior, who becomes obsessed with identifying the culprit. Doyle tells the story almost entirely in dialogue, making for an endearingly authentic read with a strong sense of place, and the distinctive Irish slang he uses (eejit, jacks, buke) will make you laugh out loud. This is a warm, funny book about the impact of a surprise pregnancy on a loving family.

Find more Irish literature here then brush up on your Irish slang here.

Last Orders

by Graham Swift (London: Picador, 1996)

“I see him scratch his neck and reset his cap. I see him light up a snout, dicky chest or no dicky chest, and breathe out the first drag, bottom lip jutting, then rub his chin with the tip of his thumb, cigarette between his fingers, then run the ball of his thumb across his forehead, and I know I do all those things, without helping it, the same gestures, the same motions.”

Three men, friends since WWII, have gathered in their local pub to carry out the final wishes of Jack Dodds, a London butcher who requested that his ashes be scattered into the sea. Jack’s adopted son Vince drives Ray, Vic and Lenny to the pier at Margate and as they travel, we learn their history. Each chapter, some just a page or two long, is narrated by a different person in the form of an interior monologue but Ray also talks us through the men’s road trip and so becomes the centre of consciousness in the book. Years of friendship and resentments lie behind every comment made and as the book progresses, we learn why none of their wives came along. Winner of the 1996 Booker Prize, Last Orders makes wonderful use of English working-class slang (snouts, daffs, aint) and tells the story of four families through an interwoven series of conversations, shifting between times and tenses, memories and revelations.

Watch a trailer for the film adaptation of Last Orders here.