After spending thirty years in America, Henry Smart returns to Ireland in this moving finale to his story. At the end of Oh, Play That Thing, the second volume of Roddy Doyle's trilogy about Henry Smart, Henry, his leg severed in an accident with a railway boxcar, crawls into the Utah desert to die - only to be discovered by John Ford, who's there shooting his latest Western. Ford recognizes a fellow Irish rebel and determines to turn Henry's story - a boy volunteer at the GPO in 1916, a hitman for Michael Collins, a republican legend - into a film. He appoints him "IRA consultant" on his new film, The Quiet Man. The Dead Republicopens in 1951 with Henry returning to Ireland for the first time since his escape in 1922. With him are the stars of Ford's film, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and the famous director himself, "Pappy," who, in a series of intense, highly charged meetings tries to suck the soul out of Henry and turn it into Hollywood gold-dust. Ten years later Henry is in Dublin, working in Ratheen as a school caretaker, loved by the boys, who call him "Hoppy Henry" on account of his wooden leg. When Henry is caught in a bomb blast, that wooden leg gets left behind. He soon finds himself a hero: the old IRA veteran who's lost his leg to a UVF bomb. Wheeled out by the Provos at funerals and rallies, Henry is to find he will have other uses too, when the peace process begins in deadly secrecy... In three brilliant novels, A Star Called Henry, Oh, Play That Thingand The Dead Republic, Roddy Doyle has told the whole history of Ireland in the twentieth century. And in the person of his hero, he has created one of the great characters of modern fiction. From the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Crafting an elaborate fictional world for his second novel, complete with fabricated news reports and other source material (verified by the editor), Doyle (Revenge of the Teacher's Pet) successfully evokes a moment that will make readers wonder: could this be real? Audrey Mapes is a beautiful Midwestern girl born with no feet and given to eating nonfood items like wood, metal, fabric, or plastic without any adverse effects. Doyle's narrative follows Audrey and her family, including twin siblings Toby and McKenna, as they cope with Audrey's bizarre affliction—her father by means of absence, her mother by pills, her grandmother by religion and her siblings by further eating disorders. Told from McKenna's point of view, the often disturbing story pursues Audrey from unhappy childhood through adulthood success; she earns fame through a traveling freak show and, eventually, arrives in the Michigan city of Kalamazoo for a climactic eating event. While Doyle's novel is relentlessly inventive, his characters are irredeemably unlikable, making it difficult to care about any of the bizarre goings-on. (Jan.)
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Review

"Darrin Doyle’s The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo is wildly out there, but its message about family dysfunction is achingly real."—DailyCandy.com, Best New Winter Reads Pick

“As quirky, funny, and masterful as it is, Darrin Doyle’s The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo isn’t just a book about a girl who ate a city—it’s about the hunger we all have, for love, for family, and for home."—Alix Ohlin, author of The Missing Person and *Babylon and Other Stories*

"Darrin Doyle's The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo is about, well, the girl who ate Kalamazoo, but it's about much more than that: family, religion, urban blight and renewal, fame, literature, sister love, and weightlifters. This is why Audrey Mapes is such an incredible character: in creating this girl who can and will eat everything, Darrin Doyle has also created a way to talk about the things that matter most to us. It's an incredible, riotous, beautifully written, sneakily profound novel. I don't know of another book like it; I would be jealous of it if I weren't so busy being amazed by it."—Brock Clarke, author of *An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England*