Roddy Doyle's novel will rise or fall in the reader's estimation in large part on his or her assessment of the final few pages. Victor Forde, mid-50s, is looking back on an adult life that started with some promise but has landed him in a pub, alone, looking for new friends. In walks Fitzgerald, apparently a schoolmate from the 1970s. Forde doesn't remember him, but Fitzgerald seems to know quite a lot about Forde. After a school trauma is revealed, the stage is set for the surprise ending. It is genuinely disorienting, but the publisher's note in my edition assures readers that there is no "trick," that everything in the novel adds up. I suspect a second reading would confirm that.
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