"Fine, poignant and subtly humorous stories. . . . [Bullfighting] is probably the finest collection of Irish short stories since James Joyce’s Dubliners. The delicacy of emotion is here, the spare but elegant writing, the heartbreak and humour. . . . There’s laugher and sadness, provided by a writer at his peak, teasing meaning out of the ordinary with exquisite skill and delicacy.”
—John Doyle, The Globe and Mail
“Bullfighting offers a series of rare and beautiful mid-life meditations. . . . With its chatty, in-the-pub style . . . you feel as though you are eavesdropping on each of these men’s forbidden thoughts and fears.”
—Daily Express
“With the sparest materials Doyle snaps entire lives into sharp focus in a handful of pages, which is short fiction doing what short fiction does best.”
—The Times
“Shedding tears, eliciting laughs and revitalising the mundanity of everyday existence has long been Roddy Doyle’s finest suit. He delivers it [in Bullfighting] in spades.”
—The List
“These stories pack a considerable cumulative punch, a resounding wake-up call to anyone who feels time running by too fast or the loss of meaning in their everyday lives and relationships. . . . The stories are much more powerful read together than on their own. . . . [They] have plenty of Doyle’s irreverent humour and language, too.”
—Irish Independent
Roddy Doyle is the author of seven acclaimed novels and Rory and Ita, a memoir about his parents. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.
