''The Dead Republic: A Novel'' is a 2010 novel by Irish author

Roddy Doyle Roddy Doyle (born 8 May 1958) is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. He is the author of eleven novels for adults, eight books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories. Several of his books have been ma ...

which concluded '' The Last Roundup'' trilogy. The first book in the trilogy was ''

A Star Called Henry ''A Star Called Henry'' (1999) is a novel by Irish writer Roddy Doyle. It is Vol. 1 of '' The Last Roundup'' series. The second installment of the series, '' Oh, Play That Thing'', was published in 2004. The third, '' The Dead Republic'', was p ...

(1999)'', and the second was '' Oh, Play That Thing! (2004)''.

Plot

An aging Henry Smart is attempting to cement his reputation.

John Ford John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...

plans a movie based on Henry's life, but Henry eventually realizes the film that Ford has planned will reduce his story to sentiment. Henry plans to kill Ford, but his callousness has faded, and he drifts into the Dublin suburbs, where he meets a respectable widow who may possibly be his long-disappeared wife. Henry ages in obscurity until the 1970s, when he is caught up in the 1974 Dublin car bombings and the

Provisional IRA The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, fa ...

uses a distorted version of Henry's story as a public relations ploy.

Reception

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' said "Doyle’s eye for the light and shade of style and register in Irish speech and his dissection of the island’s shibboleths are masterly, but the Hollywood episodes with Ford read like schematics rather than windows into character. Doyle is doubtlessly speaking from the heart about the difficulties of seeing a script go through the movie mill but it’s too much and not enough at the same time."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dead Republic 2010 Irish novels Novels by Roddy Doyle Novels set in Dublin (city) Jonathan Cape books