The Deportees and Other Stories

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The Deportees and Other Stories
ISBN
0-224-08061-X

The Deportees and Other Stories is the first short story collection[1] by Irish writer Roddy Doyle first published by Jonathan Cape in 2007.[2] All the stories were written for Metro Éireann, a multicultural paper aimed at Ireland's immigrant population and explore their experiences. The stories were written in 800 word chapters and published monthly; as Doyle explains in the foreword to the book:

The stories have never been carefully planned. I send off a chapter to the Metro Eireann editor Chinedu Onyejelem, and, often, I haven't a clue what's going to happen next, And I don't care too much, until the deadline begin's to tap me on the shoulder. It's a fresh, small terror, once a month. I live a very quiet life; I love that monthly terror.[This quote needs a citation]

Stories

  • "Guess Who's Coming for the Dinner", a reworking of the 1967 film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, it concerns a father forced to confront his prejudices when his daughter brings a Nigerian male friend home to dinner
  • "The Deportees", a follow-up to
    Corrs. They end up playing Woody Guthrie
    songs at an Indian 21st birthday party
  • "New Boy", a refugee from Rwanda's first day in an Irish school
  • "57% Irish", about a doctoral student who devises an 'Irishness' test for immigrants based around responses to disparate Irish imagery including Roy Keane goals and Riverdance
  • "Black Hoodie", three teenagers investigate racial profiling in in-store security but get arrested for shop-lifting
  • "The Pram", a Polish au pair plots revenge on the family who have treated her so badly
  • "Home to Harlem", a quarter black student moves to New York to research how the Harlem Renaissance influenced Irish literature and to search for his black grandfather.
  • "I Understand", a Nigerian illegal immigrant is threatened by drug dealers (online text)

Reception

  • Tim Martin writing in The Independent was surprised at the collections wide range but remarked that some of the stories appeared understandably rushed. He praised its sincerity and 'good cheer'.[3]
  • Ian Sansom in The Guardian wrote "The stories are often very funny and rumbustious...When these stories are good, and they often are, they're absolutely hilarious".[4]
  • Erica Wagner in The New York Times said "Doyle wrote them in response to the urban legends he’d started to hear about his country’s newest inhabitants: Muslims slaughtering sheep in their backyards, a Polish woman who turns her flat into a brothel. In reacting to such squalid stories, Doyle sometimes goes too far in the opposite direction, and at first it might seem as if there’s something rose-tinted about the view he wants to take...the optimism can seem forced. Sad to acknowledge, perhaps, that it’s the darker stories that work best."[5]
  • Cressida Connelly ends her review in The Spectator with "The Deportees may not be Doyle at his very best, but it’s still a highly enjoyable read".

Adaptations

References

  1. ^ http://www.theshortreview.com/reviews/RoddyDoyleDeportees.htm White Irish Need Not Apply
  2. ^ "The Deportees by Roddy Doyle". www.fantasticfiction.com. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
  3. ^ "The Deportees, By Roddy Doyle". The Independent. 15 September 2007. Retrieved 8 December 2022.
  4. ^ "Review: The Deportees by Roddy Doyle". the Guardian. 1 September 2007. Retrieved 8 December 2022.
  5. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 8 December 2022.
  6. ^ "Guess Who's Coming For the Dinner, St Andrew's Lane Theatre, Dublin". the Guardian. 8 October 2001. Retrieved 24 July 2021.
  7. ^ New Boy (2007) - IMDb, retrieved 24 July 2021
  8. ^ "Welcome to New Boy | New Boy". Archived from the original on 2 April 2012. Retrieved 11 September 2011.

External links

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