Among the generation of Irish writers who emerged in the 1980s, Roddy Doyle is one of the most popular both at home and worldwide. While his popular appeal has been undisputed from the moment his privately published first novel, The Commitments (1987), b...

Not many writers can lay claim to comparisons to James Joyce and Raymond Carver, but Roddy Doyle--armed with a lively literary style and comedic flair--has found himself in that happy position. His novels, which focus on working-class families in modern...

Claire Cooperstein. Scribner/Drew, $22 (272p) 1SBN 0-684-80234-1 Dedicated to "all the women whose accomplishments have been forgotten," this assemblage of letters and journal excerpts, nearly all of them fictional, tells the story of Jobanna Bonger-van Gogh, the young widow who preserved and...

JUST OFF THE rocky coastline of up-country Maine, a meadow rises from the banks of the Union River. Edged by a tree-shaded brook that ripples over moss-covered boulders, and cut by paths curving through its tall grasses and wildflowers, the meadow leads to...

A van rolled into a pond Wednesday after the driver got out to ask directions to a Fourth of July barbecue, killing a woman and two children and leaving a third child in critical condition, authorities said.The victims were in 15 to 20 feet of...

A Labor Day crash on an expressway southwest of Chicago killed a teenage girl and an adult man, and injured 12 others _ all temporary workers on their way home from a job.The victims were occupants of a van that flipped over after the driver...

In the following review, Fitzgerald maintains that The Van showcases Doyle's sharp wit and ear for dialogue.

In the following review, Appelo applauds Doyle's use of the vernacular as well as his narrative structure in The Van.

In the following review, Mannes-Abbott offers a positive assessment of The Van, praising the novel as humorous and deftly written.