BOOK REVIEW: Dead Man Talking by Roddy Doyle ★★★★☆
Pat had been best friends with Joe Murphy since they were kids. But years ago they had a fight. A big one, and they haven’t spoken since --- till the day before Joe’s funeral.
What? On the day before his funeral Joe would be dead, wouldn’t he?
Yes, he would…
Roddy Doyle’s first book for the Quick Reads programme to support adult literacy is fast, funny and just a tiny bit spooky.
This really was a short simple story to read. There wasn’t too much description, heavily relied on dialogue and it’s the kind of book I like. I don’t want to reveal any spoilers but really it’s a story about a man coming to terms with his own mortality. And it is spooky.
Dead Man Talking is written in the first person from the point-of-view of a middle-aged man called Pat Dunne. As Pat attends Joe Murphy’s wake, his formers friends death raises complicated feelings of guilt, sadness and nostalgia and for Pat he doesn’t know who to deal with them, feeling like he’s going around in circles.
Roddy Doyle is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter with most of his work set in the contemporary Irish comedy Literature, with his book The Commitments adapted to film in 1991.
Dead Man Talking posses Doyle’s trademarks of cracking one liners and down to earth working class characters that readers love to read about. I didn’t dislike anything about this book as the twist at the end was pretty chilling.
Rating 4/5 Stars
Publishers: Jonathan Cape
Publication Date: February 5th 2015
Genre: Contemporary/Short Story
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