Monday, August 17, 2026

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

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

It was like a procession, pushing and dragging the van through Barrytown, Bimbo and Jimmy Sr and some of their kids although the twins were no help at all, just worried about getting their clothes dirty. Mind you, you didn’t even have to touch the van to get dirty from it, you only had to stand near it. It took them ages to get the wheels on it and then getting it around to the front without knocking a lump off the house took ages as well and it was nearly dark by the time they were on the road to Bimbo’s. The weather was great, of course, and everyone on the left side of the street was out on their front steps getting the last of the sun and by the time they’d got to the corner of Barrytown Road there was a huge fuckin’ crowd out watching them. Jimmy Sr kept his head down all the way, except when they were going down the hill just at the turn into Chestnut Avenue and he had to run up to the front to help Bimbo stop the van from taking off on its own, past the corner. They’d had to dig their heels in or else it would’ve gone over Bimbo and his young one, Jessica. He should have let it; that would have taught Bimbo a lesson about how to spend his money. Anyway, they got the useless piece of rusty shite to stop just after the corner and there was a really huge crowd by now and they cheered when they missed the corner, the cunts. They backed it back and Wayne, one of Bimbo’s young fellas, got the steering wheel around; the sweat was running off the poor little fucker, and they got it onto Chestnut Avenue and the cunts at the corner cheered again. No fear of the lazy shites giving them a hand, of course.

There really was a huge crowd out. It was a bit like Gandhi’s funeral in the film, except noisier. It was more like the Tour de France, the neighbours at the side of the road clapping and whooping, the cynical bastards.



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