The Guts cover art

The Guts

A Novel

Preview

Free with 30-day trial
Prime logo New to Audible Prime Member exclusive:
2 credits with free trial
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

The Guts

Written by: Roddy Doyle
Narrated by: Laurence Kinlan
Free with 30-day trial

₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for ₹879.00

Buy Now for ₹879.00

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Jimmy Rabbitte of The Commitments returns in the triumphant new novel from the Booker Prize–winning author.

The distinct wit and lively, authentic dialogue that are the hallmarks of Roddy Doyle’s fiction are on a full display as he reintroduces Jimmy Rabbitte in this follow-up to his beloved debut novel, The Commitments.

In the 1980s Jimmy Rabbitte formed the Commitments, a ragtag, blue-collar collective of Irish youths determined to bring the soul music stylings of James Brown and Percy Sledge to Dublin. Time proves a great equalizer for Jimmy as he’s now approaching 50 with a loving wife, four kids, and a recent cancer diagnosis that leaves him feeling shattered and frightened.

Jimmy still loves his music, and he still loves to hustle - his new thing is finding old bands and then finding the people who loved them enough to pay for their resurrected albums. As he battles his illness on his path through Dublin, Jimmy manages to reconnect with his own past, most notably Commitments guitarist Liam "Outspan" Foster and the still-beautiful backup vocalist Imelda Quirk. Jimmy also learns the trumpet, reunites with his long-lost brother, and rediscovers the joys of fatherhood.

An immensely funny and poignant novel, The Guts captures friendship, family, the power of music, the specter of death, and the zeal for life. Jimmy Rabbitte of The Commitments returns in the triumphant new novel from the Booker Prize–winning author.

©2014 Roddy Doyle (P)2014 Penguin Audio
Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Small Town & Rural Irish Literary Fiction

Critic Reviews

"Doyle's Jimmy Rabbitte reappears, dealing with cancer, mortality, and love.... I was undone by the emotional clarity of the writing itself, and by the calm, but never static, way Doyle has of presenting a scene." (The New York Times Book Review)

"Quintessential Doyle...both laugh-out-loud funny and disarmingly moving.... [It] contains some of the snappiest, wittiest, most believable, and exhilarating dialogue in fiction.... To make a story about middle-aged men battling cancer a largely effervescent lark without a trace of sentimentality is a notable achievement." (The Boston Globe)

"Roddy Doyle is a great master of dialogue, which is his narrative medium-- the main way he tells. And it's impossible for anyone, I would think, not to laugh out loud at the wit and shock of it.... If [The Guts] has a unifying theme, it is the awareness of death, and the fresh perspective on life thrown by its advancing shadow." (The New York Review of Books)

What listeners say about The Guts

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.