The hard and scrappy Dublin neighborhoods of the writer Roddy Doyle have won him acclaim around the world. But now, Doyle has set his sights on America.
His new book, "Oh Play That Thing", tells the story of Irish mobster Henry Smart who leaves the slums and hit man's life in Ireland to reinvent himself in a new world.
Doyle follows Henry through the speakeasies and bustling streets of New York in the 20s to the music clubs of Chicago -- where he discovers jazz and Satchmo himself, Louis Armstrong. Doyle's prose is still full of his signature grit and sex, where sweat and blood color all his characters. This is a story of becoming an American and living in an age of invention, racism, and loss.
