Author Roddy Doyle Tells Us What He Is Reading This Month

Novelist, dramatist and screenwriter Roddy Doyle tells us what is on his bedside table and why …

Roddy Doyle is the author of ten acclaimed novels, including The Commitments, The Van, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (which won the Booker Prize), The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, A Star Called Henry, The Guts and, most recently, Love. Doyle has also written several collections of stories, as well as the Two Pints series, and several works for children and young adults. His latest book, The Women Behind the Door, was published in September by Jonathan Cape.

“Six years ago, when my mother was dying, I couldn’t read fiction; I don’t know why not. So, I picked up a huge book called All Out War, an account of the Brexit referendum, by the The Times journalist, Tim Shipman. I was immediately engrossed – such a cast of rogues and dopes; such ineptitude, chicanery, tragedy, narcissism, bad luck and bad blood. It was Shakespeare rewritten by Wodehouse. It was absolutely brilliant.

“When Shipman was writing an extra chapter for the paperback edition, Theresa May – remember her? – called a snap election, and the extra chapter became a new book, Fall Out, about that election and its aftermath. It is equally huge, and equally brilliant, with more rogues, dopes, ineptitude – and the DUP. Interestingly, there’s only one reference to ‘the eccentric Jacob Rees-Mogg’.

“Rees-Mogg is a major player, a lanky imp, in the third book, No Way Out, which came out earlier this year. This one is about the Brexit negotiations between Britain and the EU. It’s huge again, brilliant again – history as it’s happening. It must have been a nightmare to write. I imagine Shipman coming to the end of what he thinks is the final chapter, when he checks Twitter and – ‘Ah, no!’ – yet another Tory cabinet minister has resigned, or another topsecret document has been leaked. I’ve just finished No Way Out, and it ends perfectly, in July 2019, with Boris Johnson coming out of No 10, about to make his first prime ministerial speech, while Dominic Cummings hides behind the famous door. Johnson had promised his fellow Tory Eurosceptics he would never employ Cummings.

“It’s the perfect ending because there’s yet another volume, Out, on the way, just months after No Way Out. That should get me to Christmas.”