Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A major new novel from Booker prize-winner Roddy Doyle, his best since The Woman Who Walked into Doors

Just moved in to a new apartment, alone for the first time in years, Victor Forde goes every evening to Donnelly's pub for a pint, a slow one.

One evening his drink is interrupted. A man in shorts and pink shirt brings over his pint and sits down. He seems to know Victor's name and to remember him from school. Says his name is Fitzpatrick.

Victor dislikes him on sight, dislikes too the memories that Fitzpatrick stirs up of five years being taught by the Christian Brothers.

He prompts other memories too - of Rachel, his beautiful wife who became a celebrity, and of Victor's own small claim to fame, as the man who says the unsayable on the radio.

But it's the memories of school, and of one particular Brother, that he cannot control and which eventually threaten to destroy his sanity.

Smile has all the features for which Roddy Doyle has become famous- the razor-sharp dialogue, the humour, the superb evocation of childhood - but this is a novel unlike any he has written before. When you finish the last page you will have been challenged to re-evaluate everything you think you remember so clearly.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

--Victor?     I looked up when I heard when I heard my name but I couldn't see a thing. I was sitting near the open door and the light coming through was a solid sheet between me and whoever had spoken. My eyes were watering a bit - they did that. I often felt that they were melting slowly in my head.     --Am I right?     It was a man. My own age, judging by the shape, the black block he was making in front of me now, and the slight rattle of middle age in his voice.     I put the cover over the screen of my iPad. I'd been looking at my wife's Facebook page.     I could see him now. There were two men on the path outside, smoking, and they'd stood together in the way of the sun.     I didn't know him.     --Yes, I said.     --I thought so, he said.--Jesus. For fuck sake.     I didn't know what to do.     --It must be - fuckin' - forty years, he said.--Thirty-seven or -eight, anyway. You haven't changed enough, Victor. It's not fair, so it isn't. Mind if I join you? I don't want to interrupt anything.     He sat on a stool in front of me.     --Just say and I'll fuck off.     Our knees almost touched. He was wearing shorts, the ones with the pockets on the sides for shotgun shells and dead rabbits.     --Victor Foreman, he said.     --Forde.     --That's right, he said.--Forde.     I had no idea who he was. Thirty-eight years, he'd said; we'd have known each other in secondary school. But I couldn't see a younger version of this man. I didn't like him. I knew that, immediately. Excerpted from Smile by Roddy Doyle All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

As controversial Irish radio commentator Victor Forde, 54, contemplates his life, he often returns to the five painful years he attended St. Martin's Christian Brothers School. What remains these 38 years later are fearful memories of cruel classmates and teachers prone to unpredictable violence. Newly single and intent on ingratiating himself with a group of regulars at his neighborhood bar, Victor forces himself out of his dingy apartment every evening to meet and mingle. When an odd duck by the name of -Fitzpatrick confronts Victor one night, claiming to be a schoolmate, he pushes Victor to revisit his worst nightmares. Readers anticipating Doyle's trademark wit and warmth will instead encounter a psychological mystery with an enigmatic ending that will have them flipping to the beginning looking for clues. Doyle's ability to convey so much meaning through rapid-fire dialog in the Irish vernacular is unsurpassed. His commentary about the Catholic Church, sexuality, and repression is searing. VERDICT This slim novel may not evoke many smiles, but the masterly language and honesty make the grim subject matter bearable. [See Prepub Alert, 4/10/17.]-Christine Perkins, Whatcom Cty. Lib. Syst., Bellingham, WA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

The latest novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha explores the intricate psychology and history of a failed Irish writer who has recently separated from his famous wife. Having rented a cheap apartment in the unnamed Irish hometown he'd left behind, Victor Forde passes his bleary nights at Donnelly's, a nondescript local pub where he soon runs into a forgotten, ornery schoolmate, Fitzpatrick. From there, the book's structure takes some twists and turns as Fitzpatrick forces Victor through difficult recollections of his Christian Brothers school years, his poignant courtship of his celebrity chef wife, and the controversial pro-choice radio interviews that made him infamous. A revelation brings the relationship between Victor and Fitzpatrick to a violent conclusion, leading to an ambiguous twist ending sure to spark debate in readers. Doyle skillfully depicts the triumphs and tragedies of the everyday, how the aging process humbles and ennobles, and how a single hasty decision made in one's youth can define and destroy a mind and thus a life. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

A man walks into a pub, orders a pint, and is soon accosted by a man from his past he can't quite remember. The first man is Victor Forde, recently returned to his childhood neighborhood and trying to ingratiate himself as a regular. Living alone in a sad apartment, he is, he says, separated from his celebrity-chef wife and working on a book about what's wrong with Ireland. Flashbacks to education in a Christian Brothers school, to life with his wife, hint at something wrong as does the reappearance of the mysterious man he comes to know as Eddie Fitzpatrick. As Victor returns to the pub night after night, and to his memories day after day, Doyle flavors a compelling character study with a soupçon of suspense, misdirecting readers for a powerful purpose that is only fully revealed at the shocking, emotionally charged ending. Revealing the twist would ruin the experience: let's just say Victor is hiding a trauma readers will be all too familiar with. Strong stuff.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2017 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A return to form for the Dublin novelist, who illuminates the troubled psyche of a writer who can't quite bring himself to write.After hitting his peak renown a couple of decades ago (Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha won the Booker Prize in 1993), Doyle has sometimes seemed to be drifting on autopilot. Not here, where the first-person narrative is fresh and bracing from Page 1. Victor has come to a pub looking for a place to become a regular after his recent split from his wife, a TV celebrity with a weekly show. In the pub, he encounters a man who says he remembers him from school and seems to know more about him than anyone besides Victor himself should. As Victor returns to his single-man's flat, and to the writing that haunts him because he can never accomplish much, he muses on the life that has brought him here. He remembers the Christian Brothers, his teachers, one of whom molested him at least once. He remembers his days as a rock critic and then his move into political journalism, which resulted in his chance meeting with the beautiful, irresistible Rachel. She would become Ireland's television sweetheart, beloved by all, but for some reason she loved only Victor. The reader can't figure out why. Victor can't figure out why. The friends he makes in the pub can't figure out why. "What did she see in you?" one asks. Their split is also something of a mystery. Meanwhile, Victor keeps running into that same guy in the pub, the stranger who has now become his best friend. "He'd knowhe knewmore than I'd want known," Victor fears, more than he'd want to tell the others in the pub or even the reader. The writing that obsesses him is "about the rot that is at the heart of Ireland," that is within Victor himself, a corrosion that began in his school days. It isn't until the final pages that the reader understands just what Doyle has done, and it might take a rereading to appreciate just how well he has done it. The understatement of the narrative makes the climax all the more devastating. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.