Dark, claustrophobic but witty study of the long-term effects of sexual abuse. Utterly sad, with a shocking twist which didn't lose its impact even if half expected, and even though I wasn't convinced it worked. Powerful and moving. Recommended.

In Smile Roddy Doyle beautifully tells Victor's stories in the first person and as told to his new mates in the pub; to Rachel, his dream woman and to the world at large through the media of radio and music journal. For me Roddy Doyle perfectly captures the voice of 'ordinary people' and Victor is totally believable and a sympathetic character. The way in which he warily approaches a group of men in the pub, hoping to have people to talk to other than the barman, is particularly realistic. The reader learns of Victor's childhood, schooling, adolescence, schooling, young adulthood, schooling, first love, schooling, middle age and yes, ultimately, schooling. For Victor is one of many boys who was schooled at the hands of the Christian Brothers in Ireland and that particular form of education has left its permanent mark. I was engrossed in Victor's stories and speculated and wondered right to the end who Fitzpatrick was. Highly recommended.

Smile by Roddy Doyle is a definite change from his normal books. Although his huge talent for creating realistic, memorable characters, wonderful dialogue and wit exists in this novel, Smile examines a much more sinister topic than in previous books and delves into the heart breaking repercussions and the lifetime affects of abuse for Victor, the novels main character. This is an immensely brave novel from Doyle. Initially I thought the ending strange as I hadn’t guessed the outcome throughout, however I'm in awe of the entire book hours after finishing it and will need now to take time and go back over the story again and digest it to truly appreciate every aspect of this wonderful piece of work and the clever style and masterful way in which it was portrayed . This is a story I won't forget. Bravo! My thanks to Random House UK and NetGalley for this copy for review.

Roddy Doyle’s trademark fast-paced style and tone, and his wonderfully authentic dialogue, are certainly in evidence here but his latest novel is a much darker book, still comic at times, but with a seriousness and sense of tragedy that is dealt with less bleakly in his other tales. It’s the story of middle-aged Victor Forde, who once having lived with a famous celebrity chef, now finds himself single and spending his evenings in a local pub. Here one night he is approached by a man who claims to be an old schoolmate, although Victor can’t remember him. Eddie Fitzgerald reminds him of an incident at their Christian Brothers school that Victor has tried to forget, but this repressed memory is in fact still vivid in his subconscious. It’s a well-observed and sympathetic portrait of a man deeply affected by childhood trauma but who is braving the world with a brittle bravado, but it also soon becomes clear that Victor is an unreliable narrator and the book’s conclusion throws doubt on much that the reader has so far understood. There’s much to admire here, especially the descriptions of the boys and masters at school, and the sense of shame that pervades Victor’s psyche. But I’m not sure that I was convinced by the ending and I’m left feeling puzzled rather than satisfied by the novel. For me it is one of Doyle’s less successful books, although still immensely readable and compelling.

I thought Smile was very good, and truly excellent in places. It has ingredients that would normally put me off and if it hadn't had Roddy Doyle's name on it I suspect that I would never have tried it, but I'm very glad that I did.

In Ireland, Victor, a middle-aged man ends up moving to his old home town after the break-up of his marriage, and we get the story of his growing up and early adulthood told in retrospect, complete with brutal treatment and sexual exploitation at the hands of the Brothers at school…it just sounds tediously familiar. The thing is, though, that Roddy Doyle can really write. I don't mean that he's verbose or "literary," but that his prose is incredibly readable, his characters are very real and completely convincing and his dialogue is brilliant. The book was a genuine pleasure to read. Chiefly, he catches superbly the sense of an adolescent boy growing up – that mixture of arrogance and insecurity, the precariousness of one's position among one's peers, the disbelief that a desirable woman could possibly be interested in you…and so on. Even though my education and upbringing were very different from Victor's, these internal experiences of a young man rang completely true to me and I found that aspect of the book truly excellent. There is also a fine, quite light-touch evocation of the religious conservatism of may in Ireland in the 80s which I found very neatly done.

The last quarter or so didn't work quite so well for me as Victor's present-day life becomes more prominent and the shady, slightly menacing figure of a man who claims to know Victor from schooldays intrudes. The climax is rather weird and I'm still not sure I fully understand it – but it still packed a powerful emotional punch for me, from which I'm still reeling slightly.

I have rounded 4.5-stars up to 5 because so much of the book is exceptionally good, it's so well written and the ending is extraordinary. Despite minor reservations, I can recommend this warmly.

(I received an ARC from NetGalley.)

The great Irish storyteller Roddy Doyle has given us a rather unreliable narrator in Victor Forde, who has taken to seeking solace for his mid-life crisis in the local pub fraternity of regulars, bonding over a few pints each evening. Accosted by a boorish stranger one day, claiming to be an old school acquaintance, Victor finds himself forced to revisit scenes from his youth that he would rather forget - in particular, his sexual abuse at the hands of one of the sadistic Christian Brothers. The puzzle that nags at the reader is – why does he keep going back, night after night, to face the increasingly uncomfortable reminiscences with this sinister ghost from the past who he does not recognise, but who seems to know everything about him?
The mood of foreboding builds to the devastating finale, when the reader finally discovers the narrative trick that has been played – one that will make you want to re-read and re-evaluate all that has been hinted at, but cleverly disguised with Doyle’s subtle writer’s sleight of hand.

This is my first taste of a Roddy Doyle novel and this book highlighted to me the authors excellent writing style, full of wit with a disturbing backdrop.
Having just moved into a new apartment, Victor Forde goes to Donnelly’s pub for a pint, He is interrupted by a strangely dressed man in shorts and a pink shirt who sits down next to him. He seems to know Victor’s name and to remember him from school, and tells Victor his name is Fitzpatrick. Victor takes an instant dislike to Fitzpatrick and of the memories he reminds him of being taught by the Christian Brothers. He prompts memories of Rachel, his beautiful wife who became a celebrity, and of Victor’s own small claim to fame on the radio. But who is Eddie Fitzpatrick and what does he want with Victor? This is a dark story that is full of humour that will hook the reader. Some great characters and excellent dialogue..

I would like to thank Random House UK and Net Galley for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I confess I did not finish this book despite having enjoyed some of Roddy Doyle's other books. It begins with Victor Forde, a bloke in his 50s who has recently separated and returns to Dublin and his old neighbourhood. He goes to a pub and runs into Eddie Fitzpatrick who remembers him from high school although Victor can't quite remember him. I just couldn't get into this story and didn't find it particularly amusing although it was very readable. As Victor reminisces I felt the pace was too meandering for me at present but I may return to it at some other time.

Smile tells us the story of Victor Fforde, recently split up from his glamorous (and well-known) partner, as he adjusts to single life by contemplating his childhood, career and relationships over a pint or two in his new local. His new local is, in many ways, an old local as he has moved back to the poorer side of Dublin. He is aided and abetted in this by Eddie Fitzpatrick, an old classmate from his days being taught by the Christian Brothers: he can’t quite place Fitzpatrick in his memories and is, frankly, repulsed by the man but he can’t seem to avoid him. The book itself is short, a mere couple of hundred pages, but it packs quite a punch in terms of its description of brutal religious schooldays, passionate relationships and, in passing, attitudes to reproductive rights in Ireland. The ending is unusual for the author – a bit odder than you might expect – but the story itself is pure Doyle.

With his latest novel, Roddy Doyle returns to form after a series of let-downs. While diverting enough, I did not really think much of The Guts and the Two Pints books. Smile is a much more serious and riskier effort, reminiscent of Paddy Clarke and The Woman Who Walked into Doors.

Victor Forde is a minor radio personality who is recently separated from his celebrity chef wife Rachel. Back living in the old neighbourhood, he finds himself at the local pub trying to re-establish himself with a new circle of friends. One of the pub's regulars, Ed, accosts him and starts to remind him of their school days, but Victor cannot remember him. Ed's gibes awaken some bad memories for Victor, both of school and his life with Rachel.

As always, Doyle excels in capturing the badinage and false bravado of middle-aged blokes in pubs, but this time he invests it with a darker edge: doubt, confusion, sadness and regret are heavily present.

The thing that sets this book apart from Doyle's more usual fare is the quite unexpected ending. It delivers a sharp jolt to the reader's expectations and makes one re-evaluate all that went before. I think it will polarise readers, and I had my own doubts, but I'd much rather be surprised and challenged by a great writer than read yet another example of him ploughing the same old field.

I've been a fan of Doyle since Paddy Clarke HaHaHa, but I truly began to love him after reading The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. It was a book that had a truly profound effect on me and it's the one I always recommend people read when his name comes up. I think Doyle writes truly brave books and I'd add The Guts under that banner, and now this. I started this last night and was so absorbed I'd finished it by lunchtime today. It's tense and upsetting and you absolutely know that a terrible revelation is coming, but rather like seeing a car crash scene at the side of the road, you just can't look away. The thing that makes this so brutal to read is not the awful twist, it's the awful twist coupled with Doyle's ability to write such human characters in such a humane way. That is largely down to the superb dialogue he writes in tandem with his sharp eye for the nuances of human behaviour. This is a brutal and brilliant book.

Another brilliantly written Roddy Doyle book looking at the world from the point of view of an abused person much like The Woman Who Walks Into Doors did. The denials, the laughing it off, the inability to inform his mother and the effects it had on his life. Written painting a bleak picture of Catholic school life in late 70's early 80's Ireland and how it had an on-going affect on Victor this is at time a hard to read but gripping book. Roddy Doyle has a wonderful way of putting the reader into the conversations and making them feel with the characters and what they are going through. Brilliant.

Victor Forde lives on his own in a sparse apartment in Ireland. He used to be married to Rachel - businesswoman turned popular TV presenter - but that is now over, and the main focus of his life is his time spent in his local pub, Donnelly's. It is there that he meets a man who appears to know him well, even though Victor can't place him at all. The man, Fitzpatrick, tells him they used to go to school together and seems to know a lot about their time there, especially the teachers - one in particular, Murphy, who used to tell the schoolboy Victor that he liked his smile. For Victor used to attend St Martin's CBS, a Christian Brothers school in Ireland, where they were taught by monks. It is the memory of what the monks did to the young boys - Victor in particular - that would forever haunt him. Who is this man Fitzpatrick, and why is he so uncouth and imposing, dredging up horrible memories for Victor?

There are few laughs in this book, some of it uncomfortable reading, partly because of the feeling of dread in the chapters about school, and partly because you know this sort of thing was actually happening in real life. Fitzpatrick is not a nice character, and every time he makes an appearance in the pub, you just wish Victor would walk away and ignore him, but it's like a magnet, drawing them together. The ending of the book is quite a shock, in fact it had me slightly confused, and I felt I should read the book again to make sense of it.

Even though she plays a small part in the book, I loved Victor's mother, she was such a caring, adorable woman. This could be because the only other female character in the book was Rachel, the ex-wife. She came across as a domineering, controlling woman, and I felt that Victor was made out to be a victim in his marriage as well as in his school and in the pub.

Roddy Doyle often writes about uncomfortable subject matters - marriage breakdowns, domestic abuse - and most of his fiction is set in Ireland (being Irish born and bred himself), so the overall feeling of the book is true Roddy.

I'm really not sure what to make of this novel. It tells the story of Victor, a recently separated 50 something man as he adapts to life away from his relationship. Part reminiscence, part day to day, the prose is accessible and the Irish brogue comes through nicely in the turns of phrase. What I struggled with was the lack of originality displayed here. The story is mundane - not a criticism necessarily, but there is nothing different here to hundreds of other stories purporting to tell the history of a life. The catholic upbringing replete with friars and priests seems like a rather obvious path to choose. Similarly, the ending seems to come from nowhere. I did like the relationship between Victor and Rachel and Doyle has introduced some lovely nuance to the way they are with one another. Overall, however, I was a little disappointed with this book. It isn't a bad book, but I just found it all a little bit average.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A powerful voice in Irish writing returns with an evocative novel illustrating once again the misery, pain and ruined lives caused by the sexual abuse scandal prevalent within the Catholic Church from the 1950's. Victor Forde is now a lone single man who spends part of each day in Donnelly's public house. He makes the acquaintance of Fitzpatrick, who he instantly takes a dislike to. There is something strange and unwarranted about this individual, that wakes some very painful memories in the mind of Forde, and in particular the time he spent as a child within the care of the Christian Brothers.

What is astounding and memorable about "Smile" is the author's direct, compelling brutal and unforgivable method of storytelling. This makes me want to revisit classics I read many years ago and in particular The Van and the wonderfully titled Paddy Clarke ha ha. It is so refreshing to read his simple style of prose that forms an instant connection with the reader, and makes him loathe and pity Forde in equal measures. ..." a man of my age going back to some wrinkled version of his childhood. Looking for the girls he'd fancied forty years before"...."I was so bored, so heavy with the physical weight of it, I could have cried"......"Do you want it? No, thanks, I said. It was nice talking to you she said. She died five months later."..."It was the last time I slept in my mother's house and it was the last time I went for pints with the lads. Two of them are dead. I miss them like I miss my father.".....

The conclusion of this story was never going to make pleasant reading, it was unforeseen, sudden and yet an apt and fitting ending to a novel that will remain with my for many weeks and months. A monumental achievement and a welcome return to one of Ireland's most talented of writers. Many thanks to Random House uk and netgalley for a gratis copy in exchange for an honest review and that is what I have written.

Victor Forde is recently divorced and has moved into a new flat. He's a little lonely so he takes himself off to the pub with his book every night - to read and sup a pint - just for company; he doesn't really seem inclined to interact much. Then, one day, his pint is interrupted by Eddie, a strangely dressed man insisting that he knows Victor from school. Victor doesn't recall him but goes along with it even though he doesn't really like the look of him, nor does he welcome the trip down memory lane that comes with him. Through conversations between the two, we learn that Victor was a bit of a celebrity and, together with ex-wife Rachel, made up part of one of the biggest celebrity couples in town. We also see Victor thinking back to his childhood, his schooldays and what happened there and then. We learn a lot of things along the way, or do we...?
This book took me on quite a journey. I was eager to learn each new fact about Victor and his past, even though quite a lot of what I was reading was pretty uncomfortable. I am not quite sure that the author meant me to but I was even reading between the lines and adding my own bits into where there were gaps as I felt that there was definitely something I was missing. I turned out to be spot on in that assumption, but for all the wrong reasons when I eventually got to the end of the book and what was revealed there. An ending that I personally totally got. After what I had read before, and how I had read it, it fitted perfectly. On the face of it, as I read the words, I had to stop and ponder on what I had just read but, after thinking on it a wee while, it just all fell into place for me and made perfect sense. And made me quite sad. Even now, a week later, I am still thinking about Victor and that's got to be a sign of a good book if the character is still under my skin after this amount of time. It's a very brave book and an even braver ending that will, I suspect, make this very much a marmite book. I think you'll either love it or hate it. Me, I loved it. Despite everything, it is so well written, the characters so well defined (within the storyline) and it well describes the time and events depicted within. Although I am familiar with the author, this is actually the first book of his that I have read. If this is the standard of his other books, I am definitely going to add him to my TBR.

My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I really can't make up my mind if I liked this book or not. The dialogue was very good and I liked Victor and the humour. On the negative side, the ending totally surprised me with the sudden stop. Lots of unanswered questions! Thank you Net Galley for my copy. I reviewed on Goodrreads.

Roddy Doyle does gritty, real life Dublin life with a sense of humour and a great ear for dialogue. It's what he is famous for. Recently he published a series of short dialogues on current affairs, narrated over a pint of beer in a bar (Two Pints). These were previously published in newspapers and were, at best, ephemeral.

So in Smile, where we meet Victor Forde down the pub, having a series of conversations over beer, it is difficult to disengage from Two Pints and see the conversation as something more deep and meaningful. But once this hurdle is overcome, we start to see the emergence of a complex story of love lost, unfulfilled promise and a brutal childhood in a Christian Brothers school. The narrative switches between the past and the conversation in the bar, initially with Eddie Fitzpatrick, a former school student, and latterly with a group of regulars.

And Victor is something of the celebrity, having once been a journalist and a social commentator on the radio himself and married (and separated) from Rachel, a celebrity chef, TV host and founder of Meals on Heels. So as you would imagine, he has stories...

As the novel progresses, the intrigue builds. Eddie has always been a bit creepy, but he starts to become more and more sinister. And it becomes more and more apparent that all is not well with Victor. But the end, when it comes, is weird. That is a surprise as Roddy Doyle has never really done weird before. To start with, you kinda feel WTF? This is not Roddy Doyle as we know him. But give it a day and it will start to fall into place and it is clear that it has been done with a very delicate hand. With hindsight, some of the weirdness was always there, and when it becomes apparent it does not detract in any way from what has gone before.

It is so difficult to describe without spoilers, but please please please give it a go. This is poignant and deals sensitively with one of the most difficult aspects of recent Irish social history. The final result is that Victor feels like a real person who deserves our support. And there are many more Victors out there.

Wow, what on earth do you make of this? The book contains all of Doyle's characteristic black humour, great one-liners, brilliant dialogue and wonderful characters and the pub as the confessional where dark truths are revealed.

What differs here is the subject matter - that of child abuse by the church in Ireland and the effect it has on adult life.

The ending is dramatic, totally unexpected and has left me wondering but this isa book that is unmissable.