the last book I ever read (The Van: A Novel by Roddy Doyle, excerpt three)

from The Van: A Novel (The Barrytown Trilogy) by Roddy Doyle:

He was in Bimbo’s house.

If he’d been in his own gaff he wouldn’t have been sitting like this, like a gobshite, too far back in the armchair—he couldn’t get out of the fuckin’ thing because his hands were full. He didn’t want to put the can or the bottle on one of the arms of the chair because the wood was at an angle like a ski jump and very shiny; he could smell the polish. And Bimbo’s kids were flying around the place, in and out, like fuckin’-kids. And this fuckin’ tie he had on him, it was killing him; it was sawing the fuckin’ neck off him. It was the shirt, a new one Veronica’d given him; she said he’d put on weight. It wasn’t fuckin’ fair: he was drinking far less but he was getting fuckin’ fatter. She said he was anyway. She’d probably said it because it was either that or admit that she’d bought him the wrong size of a shirt. Anyway, he was fuckin’ choking and he couldn’t loosen the poxy tie because his fuckin’ hands were full—

Jesus tonight!