The Van by Roddy Doyle

The Van by Roddy Doyle  (1991, 193 pages, book three of The Barrytown Trilogy)

The Barrytown Trilogy

Please consider participating in Irish Short Story Month-March 1 to March 31-

My Prior Posts on Roddy Doyle

The Van is the eighth novel by Roddy Doyle I have read.   Obviously I like and respect his work  a lot.    The Van is the last in a series of novels, The Barrytown Trilogy, about a working class family in Dublin, the Rabbitte family.  In the final book of the trilogy the father of the family, Vernon, and his best friend Bimbo set up a food van selling fish, chips, burgers, candy bars and a few other things.   I think this is my favorite novel of the trilogy but I really enjoyed them all.

It was so much fun to see the lads take a horrible looking van and turn it into a very much profit making food van.   There are, as we always find in a Doyle novel, lots of great conversations, lots of drinking and lots of people using the word "f**k" in various variations.    I am assuming it is normal in the setting in which this novel is written for a father to use this expression with his children but it seems a little shocking at times and would be considered appalling in the Philippines.  

Watching the food van business develop was just great fun and really pretty exciting.   I felt great when they started making strong money and worried when hooligans attacked the van out of pure meanness   Watching the interplay of the characters was a great treat and Doyle is brilliant at that.   There is still a lot of life in the Rabbitte family and I hope to read more about them one day in a future book.

The next Doyle book I hope to read is his Booker Prize Winning Paddy Clarke Ha Ha.

I really hope to see the movies made from his books one day also.

I will post on his short story "Animals" during Irish Short Story Month.

Mel u