2013 · novel · the return to barrytown
the trilogy closed in 1991 with jimmy sr. and a chip van. doyle went back to barrytown twenty-two years on and picked up the son instead — jimmy jr., the lad who talked the commitments into existence, now middle-aged and facing something he can't manage his way out of. it is not a fourth instalment. it's the same town, later, with the same people in it and the light gone off them a bit.
The Storywhat it's about
twenty-five years after he talked a soul band into existence, jimmy rabbitte jr. is forty-seven — married to aoife, four kids, a dog called messi, and a diagnosis he sets about managing the way he once managed the commitments: with talk, energy, and a plan nobody asked for. he makes his living online now, digging up forgotten records and selling them back to the people who never got over them, which is a fair joke on a man who's just been told he has cancer of the guts. the book puts him back among people who knew him young — outspan, badly ill; imelda quirke, still imelda; a brother he's hardly spoken to in years — and then sends the whole lot of them to a festival in a field. it's funny the way doyle is always funny: relentlessly, and never at the expense of what's underneath it.
original commentary in the style of doyle's dialogue. no quoted text from the novel.
Who's In Itthe rabbittes, older
Jimmy Rabbitte Jr.
forty-seven. still managing everything, including his own diagnosis
Aoife Rabbitte
jimmy's wife — holding the line while he keeps talking
Marvin Rabbitte
jimmy's eldest. fronts a band called moanin' at midnight
Les Rabbitte
jimmy's estranged brother, back after years of silence
Outspan Foster
commitments guitarist. seriously ill, and still jimmy's mate
Imelda Quirke
commitmentette. twenty-five years on and entirely unbothered by it
Where They Are Nowthe commitments, twenty-five years on
the guts brings people back who were last seen in a rehearsal room in 1987. same names, different weather.
1987
Outspan Foster
guitar, and the first person jimmy ever talked into the commitments. the everyman of the band — decent player, good craic, no notions.
2012
Outspan Foster
still jimmy's mate, and seriously ill. the friendship comes through intact. not much else does.
1987
Imelda Quirke
commitmentette. backing vocals, and more sense between her and the other two than the whole rest of the band put together.
2012
Imelda Quirke
still imelda, and still entirely herself. she and jimmy circle each other with a quarter-century of history sitting in the way.
1987
Jimmy Rabbitte Jr.
the manager. couldn't play a note or sing one, but he had the vision and the mouth, and he got a soul band out of a council estate on sheer conviction.
2012
Jimmy Rabbitte Jr.
forty-seven. four kids, a business resurrecting dead records, and cancer. same mouth. same refusal to leave a thing alone.
What Runs Through Itthemes
Contextthe dublin it came from
the guts landed in 2013, in a dublin that had gone all the way through the celtic tiger and out the far side into austerity — negative equity, emigration back on the rise, and a generation who'd been told they'd made it finding out otherwise. doyle took jimmy rabbitte, the great optimist of 1987, and dropped him into the middle of that at forty-seven with a tumour. the effect isn't bleak. the title is the giveaway: bowel cancer becomes cancer of the guts, because naming it in dublin means taking the harm out of it first. the novel won novel of the year at the irish book awards that november.
No Filmwhat there is instead
the other three were all filmed. the guts hasn't been, and there's no adaptation in sight — so there's nothing to embed here and we're not going to pretend otherwise. what the book has instead is records. jimmy makes his living digging up forgotten ones, his son fronts a band named off one, and the whole thing ends in a field at a festival.
Moanin' at Midnight — Howlin' Wolf, 1951
marvin's band takes its name straight off this — howlin' wolf's first single, cut in memphis in 1951 and leased on to chess. exactly the right ancestor for a book about hauling old records up out of the ground and passing them off as a find.
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