SOURCE: Mannes-Abbott, Guy. “Dubliners.” New Statesman and Society 4, no. 165 (23 August 1991): 35-6.

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

Roddy Doyle is a phenomenon. A comic Irish writer without immediate precedent, his cultish antidotes to cynicism are an extraordinary popular success. His first novel, The Commitments, met with wild enthusiasm, and the dubious honour of being filmed by Alan Parker (for release in October). The Snapper followed and, with a BBC adaptation of that under way, Doyle has now produced a third view of the Rabbitte family of Barrytown, Dublin.

The Van shifts focus to the newly unemployed Jimmy Rabbitte Sr, reduced to only a couple of evenings drinking a week. His gloom is lifted when his friend Bimbo is made redundant. They rehabilitate a “Chipper van” with Bimbo's redundancy cheque, and set up a sweaty...