Have ye no homes to go to?

By Neville Thompson and neville-thompson

Book by Thompson, Neville This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1853719501
• ISBN13: 9781853719509
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Poolbeg Press Ltd
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

There's No Show Like a Joe Show

One of my personal favorite Irish authors is Neville Thompson. The Sunday Times described him as "Roddy Doyle with knobs on." What exactly "with knobs on" means, I don't know. But it sure sounds good. Other than geography and knobs, what makes Thompson stand out on his own? He's got a flair for crime. There's good, evil, and the action of the two dukin' it out in his characters. Exciting things happen. Don't let all the positive reviews by snobby literary types turn you off. These are page-turners. The trick that captured the critic crowd is that readers close Thompson's books with true insights into love, nookie, music, family and the Dublin underworld. A more ambitious book than "Jackie Loves Johnser OK?", "Have Ye..." gives us the lives of eight central characters who live within spitting distance of a pub. (Thus one slant on the barman's closing-up cry of the title). We see where these people are and what factors have brought them here. There's love, violence, music (one hilarious scene involving a punk band- dude!) The interaction is more complex, the trails just as honest. Also complex is the book's structure- divided up into sections that focus on the view of one of the eight. There's plenty enough crossover, people and events recurring, to keep a plot humming along. It's interesting. It's an experiment that works. On the downside? A few elements of the conclusion are transparent (though the end still holds twists and surprises) and I found one of the characters a real moan. "Pick yerself up and do something about it, woman!" I felt like yelling, anytime one of her sections came up. But, she was just a character in a novel and not a real bird so I'd skim ahead `til the next interesting bit. The book's worth a purchase for (the character) Joe Dolan alone. Four solid stars out of five.