Commitments

von Roddy Doyle

In the first volume of the Barrytown Trilogy, Roddy Doyle, winner of the Booker Prize forPaddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, introduces The Commitments,a group of fame-starved, working-class Irish youths with a paradoxical passion for the music of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and a missionto bring Soul to Dublin. Doyle writes about the band with a fan's enthusiasm and about Dublin with a native's cheerful knowingness. His book captures all the shadings of the rock experience: ambition, greed, and egotismans the redeeming, exhilarating joy of making music.The Commitmentsis one of the most engaging and believable novels about rock'n'roll ever written, a book whose brashness and originality have won it mainstream acclaim and underground cachet.