If fate were trying to kill you, how would you escape its deathly grasp? If your solution were to change your name, disguise yourself by dressing and acting differently, and protecting yourself by obtaining an imaginary dog, a greyhound named Boy, then you might be David Case. David is 15, and lives in a suburb of London with his parents and his baby brother, Charlie. One day he saves Charlie from jumping out of a window to his certain demise (Charlie was wanting to fly like the birds), and rather than feeling blessed and fortunate, he instead snaps and decides that Fate is out to get him, and his best…

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is the story of a ten-year-old Irish boy in 1968.  The book is told in Paddy’s voice, and Roddy Doyle captures the confusion and attempts to make sense of the world that go along with being 10, suppositions and extrapolations that children make.  Paddy on death and religion: When Indians died – Red ones –  they went to the happy hunting ground.  Vikings went to Valhalla when they died or they got killed.  We went to heaven, unless we went to hell.  You went to hell if you had a mortal sin on your soul when you died, even if you were on your way…