A Star Called Henry (Audiobook)

Synopsis: Born in the Dublin slums of 1901, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores, Henry Smart has to grow up fast. By the time he can walk he's out robbing and begging, often cold and always hungry, but a prince of the streets. By Easter Monday, 1916, he's fourteen years old and already six-foot-two, a soldier in the Irish Citizen Army. A year later he's ready to die for Ireland again, a rebel, a Fenian and a killer. With his father's wooden leg as his weapon, Henry becomes a Republican legend - one of Michael Collins' boys, a cop killer, an assassin on a stolen bike.

Review: 'My mother looked up at the stars. There were plenty of them up there. She lifted her hand. It swayed as she chose one. Her finger pointed. There's my little Henry up there. Look. I looked, her other little Henry sitting beside her on the step. I looked up and hated him. She held me but she looked up at her twinkling boy. Poor me beside her, pale and red-eyed, held together by rashes and sores. A stomach crying to be filled, bare feet aching like an old, old man's. Me, a shocking substitute for the little Henry who'd been too good for this world, the Henry God had wanted for himself. Poor me.'

This is an account of The Easter Rising and the subsequent War of Independence as told by Dubliner Henry Smart. The writing is brutal and shocking but also at times poetic and darkly humorous. It's not an easy read, although having Roddy narrate it brought a real authenticity to the story. It's totally unflinching and intense with, as you would expect given the subject matter, copious amounts of violence. The language is explicit and colourful and so is the graphic content but somehow Roddy threads the story with so much wit and absurdity that it doesn't feel as bleak and savage as it otherwise might and it is studded with absolute gems of characters like Miss O'Shea and Granny Nash. Also he writes so evocatively that you feel like you're there experiencing it first hand, which is fairly disturbing as, on the whole, they're not situations you'd like to find yourself in. Being one of the evil English it did have me wincing a bit and some of the depictions of violence were hard to swallow but all in all it's an incredibly accomplished piece of writing. It has the ability to shock you to your very core and make you laugh all in the same paragraph. I just loved the ongoing piece of business involving his fathers wooden leg .. genius.

I'd quite like to find out what happens to Henry Smart and so I probably will seek out the sequels at some point.