La vita senza i figli

by Roddy Doyle, Stefania De Franco (Translator)

Un uomo vaga estraniato per le strade di Newcastle, ancora piene di gente, mentre la notizia del virus che ha colpito l'Irlanda e il resto del mondo lo spinge a chiedersi cosa sia meglio fare. Un'infermiera esausta e impaurita per tutto quello che sta vivendo si sente ancora peggio dopo aver perso un paziente. Un padre si mette alla ricerca del figlio che non vede da tempo e si avventura per le strade di Dublino deserte per il lockdown… Storie commoventi, piene di vita e amore, ma anche di dolore e preoccupazione per i tempi incerti che tutti abbiamo dovuto attraversare. Con la sua tipica ironia, sferzata da battute fulminanti, Roddy Doyle dipinge un ritratto vivido e originale delle nostre esistenze, della vita famigliare, delle piccole cose per cui vale la pena di vivere. Per ricordarci che, malgrado tutto, anche la quotidianità più banale e ordinaria nasconde una ricchezza, che spesso riusciamo ad apprezzare solo dopo averla persa.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Ireland, Irish Literature, Audiobook, Literature, Book Club

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2021

About the author

Roddy Doyle (Irish: Ruaidhrí Ó Dúill) is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. Several of his books have been made into successful films, beginning with The Commitments in 1991. He won the Booker Prize in 1993.

Doyle grew up in Kilbarrack, Dublin. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from University College, Dublin. He spent several years as an English and geography teacher before becoming a full-time writer in 1993.

Reviews

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now, he actually was the man with no children. They weren’t in the house. They weren’t in his head when he woke. Their names on the screen when his phone rang were often a shock; nothing in the house or in the rhythm of his day was a reminder. They were gone. He wasn’t a father. What was he? A sixty-two-year-old bachelor. With a wife. And she was a sixty-year-old spinster, with an occasional husband. They’d become brother and sister, somehow.

Life Without Children is a book that I’m glad exists. According to an interview in The New Yorker with author Roddy Doyle on his inspiration for writing a collection of (mostly) pandemic-themed stories:

I’d been working on a novel — I’d just started it. It’s set in the present day, and I realized, as I tried to continue work on it, that I didn’t know what the present day was. It wasn’t the thing it had been two weeks before, or even two days before. I decided to set it aside, and I thought that short stories might be the way to capture the moments I was now witnessing.

Masks and hand sanitiser, 2m personal distancing and 2km travel zones, essential workers and zoom meetings, they’re all in this collection. Told primarily from the POVs of grumpy old men, these are stories of adult children giving up their leases to move home (which, generally, delight their Dads), partners in their “third age” rediscovering each other, dogs with human names, craft beer with clever names, and so many cyclists in lycra (actually, the collection begins and ends with collisions between pedestrians and cyclists — with a truly tragic such accident referenced along the way — so perhaps this is Doyle’s own greatest of grumpy old man pet peeves). And again, I’m so glad that this exists: Each of Doyle’s stories contain nice little slice of life moments, enjoyable in their own right, but taken together, they represent a valuable artifact of our pandemic experience; I reckon this collection will become even more valuable as time passes and memories fade. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

I don’t want to dissect the ten stories in this collection, but will include a few interesting passages. From Box Sets (presumably set pre-pandemic, on Irish life more generally):

The cookbooks were a sign of the shift. Whenever they went to people’s houses — and they did it a lot, on Friday and Saturday evenings, the homes of people Emer knew from work or old friends she’d kept in touch with — they were given food that was supposedly eaten on the streets of cities that Sam associated with bombings or destitution. Beirut street food, Mumbai street food. Jerusalem was the latest — Ottolenghi. The recipe book was always on the kitchen counter, and they’d have to hear the tale of the hunt for the ingredients before they were allowed to eat. Not that he objected to the food. He cooked a bit himself. Dublin street food, and the odd Mexican or Far Eastern dish. But, anyway, that was the start of the country’s comeback, he’d thought. And Emer had agreed with him. The street food books — the money to buy them and the money to use them, the tiny bit of ostentation. The books alone on the counter, and the box sets piled beside the telly.

The Curfew (about an “ex-hurricane” hitting Ireland):

The west of the country was being chewed by the weather; there were power cuts, roads made impassable, tin roofs pulled off farm sheds. Outside — here, in Dublin — it was a windy day. That was all. He’d been sitting on the bed, waiting. He wanted to see a car in the air, a hundred-year-old oak toppling; he wanted to witness something — anything. And he didn’t. The leaves were the story. The fact that nothing was happening. The leaves going the wrong way, and the woman with the teddy bear. They were his stories. He lay back on the bed. He turned, into whiteness and nothing — no thoughts or things. He slept.

Life Without Children:

Social distancing is a phrase that everyone understands. It’s like gender fluidity and sustainable development. They’re using the words like they’ve been translated from Irish, in the air since before the English invaded.

Masks:

The lockdown’s a nonsense. It’s more crowded than it ever was before the pandemic. There are chip bags and empty snack boxes all across the grass and footpath. It’s outrageous. And the masks. Dozens — hundreds of them. They’re damp and lethal on the concrete, like the leaves.

The Charger:

He can’t see himself walking into a full room again. The heat, the sweat in the air, the steam, manoeuvring himself through bodies to get close enough to shout for a pint. Putting his hands on the counter. Picking up a wet glass. Pulling open a packet of crisps. Licking the salt off his fingers. It’s not going to happen.

The Five Lamps:

Talbot Street — this was Dublin’s CBD. It was empty, the shithole it had always been. Grafton Street had a bit going for it; you could persuade yourself you were in London or even Paris if you wore blinkers and blocked your ears. But this place — danger at every corner, seagulls in charge of the air, half the premises already shut down, just waiting for the pandemic to put them out of their misery — this was Dublin.

[Mel (Epic Reading) · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are 2, maybe 3 stories worth reading in this. One of them is only 4 pages long so I struggle to call it a story in principle.
All the stories feature old white male perspectives. (Cause we need more of them?) And in almost every instance we were supposed to feel badly for the lead man because he wasn’t really a great person or had ‘lost touch’ with why he was living. I have a very hard time with this idea as it just feels like an excuse to allow the old white man to keep treating people like crap (and a fair few of these characters are awful).
There’s really nothing here special. Certainly most stories had COVID lockdown elements shoved in (as though to meet a marketing need). I know we will have lots of COVID stories in the future and I’m confident all of them will be better than this one.
With one exception, art from masks stuck to your body… pretty damn cute, funny, and poignant all at once.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Setting: Dublin (mostly), Irish Republic; 'Covid times'.
This is an excellent collection of 10 short stories which tell of the physical, emotional and psychological impact of Covid and the lockdown measures on ordinary people. Poignant and hard-hitting, these stories are eminently readable and certainly bring back some of the feelings that we all must have experienced during those periods of lockdown - and also how it still impacts on our lives even now. Well-written and totally absorbing, read the whole collection in one day - 9/10.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

We're all in this together, world-wide. And even though each experience is individualistic, a reader in the U.S. can identify with each character in these stories set in Ireland of life in lockdown. Each story sheds a light on a different viewpoint, whether it is disgust at the discarded masks, fear for exposure, a search through empty streets usually filled for a missing loved one, the surprise at how long this has lasted -- all these feelings are universal. Roddy Doyle writes with his usual flair and discerning eye.

[Royce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I expect that we will be reading pandemic stories, stories about the pandemic or stories written during the first and subsequent lockdowns for many years to come. Most of the stories in this collection take place during the first lockdown of the pandemic, in and around Ireland. Ordinary lives described in a realistic but extraordinary way, so that the reader not only relates to the characters’ lives; but also their lives linger in the reader´s mind long after reading the last page. There are stories about the first few days of the first lockdown when we were still trying to figure everything out. There are stories about the loss of lives and connections with family members and friends. But these stories also show the best side of humanity, hope and love. Hope and love allow us to move forward and to cherish the time we live on planet earth. I highly recommend these stories.

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roddy Doyle reads his own book in the audio version of this short story collection written during the days of pandemic lockdown. All the characters in the stories are middle-aged parents, mostly fathers, who find themselves shut off from the world starting in March 2020. Some couples use the opportunity to grow closer, and some to break off from tired relationships. One man suffers from a panic attack and remembers something hard from his childhood. One father decides to break curfew and go find his drug-addicted son in Dublin. Doyle is the perfect narrator for these stories; I could listen to him all day long.

It is possible that readers might not want to look back so soon at the moments when we didn't know what to expect from global catastrophe. But it feels somehow familiar, comforting. And now I want to go back and read Doyle's whole body of work, many titles I've missed among favorites like The Commitments and The Woman Who Walked Into Doors.

[Laura Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am torn on this one. Life Without Children is a collection of ten COVID stories. I like Roddy Doyle's writing. He makes it seem so effortless. The problem is the subject. I am apparently not ready to read bleak pandemic stories. It makes the world feel gray to me when what I want is sunshine. So it took me a while to finish because I didn't really want to pick it up again but I felt compelled to finish out of my respect for the author.
3.5*

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of short stories all featuring Covid themes and set in Ireland, as are all of Doyle’s works. I found the stories to be of uneven quality, but where they worked, did they ever.
The final two stories in the collection, The Worms and The Five Lamps, were particularly moving.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've always been interested in Roddy Doyle, because I love Ireland and Irish lit, and he's one of their bigger writers. I probably should have started with one of his more acclaimed novels, because this was lacking.

Short stories really have to pack a punch and leave you with....something. It doesn't have to be an obvious theme or message, but could be the perspective of a character, the ability to consider an odd scenario, a slice of life....just something! These focused on the pandemic. So many of them felt so.....meandering (which, to be fair, being in lockdown is certainly not a time when a lot was happening for people). I guess I don't mind a lack of action if I have an emotional connection, or I'm intrigued. I just didn't feel that. Many of the characters seemed so oblivious to what was going on in their lives and had no connection to the people in them and only started slightly considering these things with the onset of the pandemic. Yes, we all took stock of our lives when Covid hit but I'd like to think most of us were a bit more compassionate and aware to start. A lot of older white guy syndrome where they've just been bumbling around not really thinking much of anything or anyone.

Ironically, the two stories I liked the most, Worms and The Five Lamps featured this protagonist to some extent. In Worms, the narrator literally says he hasn't known his wife for thirty years and didn't really know who he married, which was so ridiculous and infuriating....but I guess there are people and marriages like that. Somehow the little moments in this one worked and the meandering quality all worked to build to a pleasing (but sad) finish.

I almost gave it three stars for the last two stories, but ultimately 2/10 stories I liked (not even sure if I loved them) isn't three star worthy. Disappointed, but still interested in trying his novels in the future.

It also might be worth noting I listened to these on audio, which I have only done with one other short story collection. I usually do them in print. Maybe short stories are just better in print because they start to run together? Or maybe I'm just trying to be generous, because the other short stories I listened to (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) were great. Hm.

[Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 ***

Een 10-tal kortverhalen die zich afspelen vlak voor of tijdens één van de lockdowns (covid) in Dublin. Het gaat meestal niet zozeer over de lockdown en covid 'an sich' maar meer over wat die gedwongen afzondering/isolatie doet met de menselijke psyche, hoe een enkeling dit ervaart, hoe een koppel ermee omgaat, enz.
Kort, scènes uit het dagelijkse leven in een bijzondere periode.

Niet alle verhalen zijn even sterk maar er zijn er toch enkele heel goede bij.

Medio 2023, anderhalf jaar na de laatste lockdown is het interessant om daar eens op terug te kijken.

Geen Nederlands vertaling.

[Andrew MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can you say about Doyle? A lot, actually. His characters are charming, and I'm particularly charmed by his older men, who kind of bop through the world in a fugue of aging and exasperated wonder at the changed world around them. Not that everyone in this collection is an older man. A good example is the nurse in "Nurse," who struggles with the death of a beloved patient. Anyway, the genders and ages of the people in these stories are beside the point - just like Covid, a character unto itself, is beside the point.

So what is the point? I'm not sure if I can put it into words, but it's got something to do with the 'craic' between people, the chat, how little moments can be big universes, how people die and laugh and cry, sometimes in the same moment, and the way, at the end (of the day, of the stories in the book, of our lives) what we have is a collage of experiences, conversations, jokes, wives and husbands and exes, dead moms and dads, children who piss around too much on their phones, and on and on and on. And pubs. Fucking pubs (like Doyle's men, I'm fond of artful f-bombs).

If you like Doyle you'll love this collection. You might be bummed out that it's so slim, but that's okay.

If you've never read Doyle you'll love this collection. You might be bummed out that you haven't discovered Doyle until now, but that's okay. You have Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha to read, The Barrytown Trilogy (and Guts!) to read, along with the pair of Paula Spencer books. Plus the Henry Smart books.

[Pieter Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik heb dit boek toevallig ontdekt in een cottage op Skye, waar de eigenaars overal verspreid in huis stapeltjes boeken hadden liggen. Dit lag naast mijn bed, dus ik nam het vast. Hoe simpel kan het leven soms zijn.

Elk boek wordt beter door het te lezen met uitzicht op dolfijnen die dartelen in een zonovergoten Hebriden-zee, en dat heeft dit boek zeker ook deugd gedaan.

Doyle blijkt een chroniqueur te zijn van witte, cis-hetero, middle-age vaders van vier kinderen. Spek voor mijn bek dus. Hij levert een fijne bundel kortverhalen af die zich allemaal afspelen tijdens lockdown-episodes in Dublin. Mooie waarnemingen, goed boek.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this one for a challenge. Some interesting stories.

[Réka Virág · Rating 2 out of 5]

fogjuk ra h elolvastam

[Tracy Hollen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

Sigh.

Not sure if I’m ready for these pandemic stories.

Low-ish rating partly due to this. Just didn’t find the stories very engaging.

[Steve Lawler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a Roddy Doyle fan. I found one of these stories extraordinarily moving. Several were very good. And a few I just didn't connect with.

[Maison Koala · Rating 2 out of 5]

Protagonisti spaesati, relazioni ingarbugliate, prosa ai mini termini e nulla… mi sono persa anch’io.

Giudizio tecnico finale: Lost. Tipo la serie, sì.

[Georgina Reads_Eats_Explores · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s over 25 years since I picked up my first Roddy Doyle read - The Commitments - since you’re bound to be wondering, and I never looked back. I inhale his novels; in fairness, I’d read his shopping list. There’s just no one else who captures ordinary life the way he does; it’s pure magic like. So when Life Without Children (a short story collection) landed in my hands, I knew I was in for something special, and I’m not one bit disappointed.

The stories are all set during lockdown, but don’t be thinking it’s all doom and gloom. Sure, there’s grief and loneliness in it, alright, how could there not be? But there’s also great warmth, a few laughs, and those lovely little moments of humanity that Roddy is brilliant at picking up on.

Each story is like a small window into the different ways the pandemic knocked us sideways — the loneliness, the sudden gulfs between people, the little heartbreaks that rocked us all to some extent.

Whether it’s a man stranded in Newcastle weighing up the life he’s left behind, a nurse worn ragged by grief, or a son grappling with the quiet devastation of missing his mother’s funeral, It’s real stuff, raw in places handled with that trademark wit and compassion. No big lectures, no heavy-handed moralising, just Doyle telling it straight out, like someone chatting to you over a pint.

As always, the dialect is spot on, but the thing that got me most interested is how Doyle finds beauty in the bleakness. There’s laughter, tenderness, and a dose of dry humour running through even the darkest moments. You can feel the ache of absence, but there’s hope, too, stubborn and ordinary and fierce.

Life Without Children is a quiet enough book, but powerful all the same — the kind you’ll find yourself thinking about days at some random moment. A proper treasure.

[grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

lot more children in this book than it would first appear

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, good collection of pandemic stories. Some I liked better than others, but that is the nature of short story collections.

[Ian Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting short stories about different situations involving the relationship between parents and their children with a covid lockdown backdrop.

[Parsnip · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I wasn’t expecting to love this that much and to get so emotional about it ?

Giving a short story collection 5 stars is something for me, because usually some stories are better than others and the global rating tends to reflect this imbalance. It could have been the case here as well, because I gave several 3,25 here, but the other stories were just so good, they truly shined for me and really got me by surprise in a way I can only celebrate.
If I had known this was essentially about middle-aged men realising they love their children and finally allowing themselves to be soft and vulnerable, I honestly wouldn’t have been interested. I picked this up because I assumed it was about NOT having children, maybe how society views it and how judgemental it gets on that topic, especially regarding women. But parenthood is the very topic of Life Without Children, and it is done in quite a unique and beautiful way that was so moving and believable. I adored it, and I was certainly not expecting to cry and have that much compassion for middle-aged white men.
I think Roddy Doyle KNOWS how to write short-stories, and by that I mean being able to craft such realistic settings and characters in barely 15 pages, and adding an interesting and balanced storyline on top of that. Chef-kiss, short stories are the superior literary genre. The tone, pace, little twists and waitings were always perfectly done and when they got me, they truly got me. The intimacy of the feelings and the situation were simply beautiful, and soft, and they carried something tragic in them that mesmerised me. Because these characters realised such profound and essential elements of their lives almost always too late, and them finally accepting their own depth and trauma out of nowhere in such mundane settings while they’re stuck in their routine was really so moving to read. It’s all about banal tragicness, and I love that. It’s also one of the first book I read about lockdown that I found knew how to use this setting and atmosphere in an interesting and credible way.

Box Sets : 3,25/5
The Curfew : 4,75/5
Life Without Children : 3,25/5
Gone : 5/5
Nurse : 5/5
Masks : 3,75/5
The Charger : 5/5
The Funeral : 3,25/5
Worm :5/5
Five Lamps : 5/5

[Melody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Various stories of childless or empty nester people during the pandemic. Some I liked and the rest were just okay, though I think readers will find at least one person in the stories to which they could’ve related during the start of the pandemic.

[Jeatherhane Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Knopf Canada and NetGalley for the digital review copy of this book.⁠ It was published on 22 Feb 2022.
⁠
Roddy Doyle has been on my radar since the 80s, but I have never read one of his books before. I started The Woman Who Walked Into Doors for a book club a few years back, but found it too depressing to finish.⁠
⁠
The stories in Life Without Children are also depressing, but mostly because the context is too fresh. This is what it has been like to live in lockdown throughout the Covid pandemic. Someone reading these stories in the future will be able to feel in painful detail the way this pandemic has changed the world and isolated us from each other. Reading it right now might be a little too real.⁠
⁠
Reading this collection has made me want to read more of Doyle's work. He is a talented writer with the ability to bring people and places to life on the page. This book was excellent, and I'm glad I read it. I only wish I had been able to read it as purely fiction instead of the terrible reality it portrays.⁠

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Roddy Doyle examines the lives to ordinary Irish families as they navigate the complexities of living during COVID lockdown. I know Doyle can bring warmth to every day characters and find humor and joy in the unexpected. In Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha especially he is able to reveal complex relationships - the slights and the delights - without a lot of telling.
Unfortunately, this book of short stories is flat and dry. I didn't feel like I had any insight into the character's lives. Was it the format? The topic? All the stories blended in with each other and I skimmed to finish.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one writes like Doyle. I was very pleased to be granted this book via #netgalley Having read the title story, Life Without Children, I started to burn through the rest of the stories here. Then I slowed down. This is, truly, what Doyle's writing deserves - some focus and patience. Even while his stories (and novels) drive you headfirst towards the end, they grow and add deeper meaning when taken one at a time, and read slowly.

Honestly, if you like Doyle, get this. If you like good writing, get this. If you want to try and figure out what has happened to us all over the past year and a half, get this. It's a remarkable book by one of our greatest writers.

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is it too soon? This collection of ten short stories centers around COVID-19 and the various restrictions it imposed on our lives. While all but one of the protagonists are Caucasian men in their sixties (or close to that), they are still, oddly relatable because Doyle has, as always, brought his sharp eye to small details. You might not like all the protagonists but I'll bet you'll recognize some of them or, more likely, the situations they find themselves in. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. I'm a short story fan who always recommends reading a collection one story a day and this is no exception, especially given the COVID themes.

[Fon E · Rating 1 out of 5]

More woeful than witty. I almost cheered when I'd finished this book purely because I didn't have to read anymore of it.

It's a collection of stories, mostly set during the Covid lockdown times. Maybe it's too soon yet but I'm not looking back on that time with any kind of nostalgia.

A couple of the stories did resonate - one with a couple reconnecting through their discussion of earworm music was interesting. For the most part though, they were instantly forgettable. I didn't expect the level of humour of the Barrytown stories but I did think there would be a heart to the characters and something in them to make them engaging to th reader.

A definite thumbs down from me for this one.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

A New Year’s resolution is to DNF more often or else I’ll never make progress on my TBR of over 600 books. I picked this book from the library as it is the most recent from Roddy Doyle. He had been selected to chair the 2025 Booker prize judging panel. I liked the idea of familiarizing myself with all the judges before I head into reading the longlist this year. I think I’ve read enough to help identify his style.

DNF after 6 of the 10 short stories. This is the third book I’ve read that takes place during COVID. I didn’t find that it added any insight to the experience. The characters and settings were rather ordinary and flat and just didn’t resonate enough to keep reading.

[Carolyn Drake · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is probably the first book I've read that overtly deals with Covid (specifically the period of strict lockdown). Being a collection of Roddy Doyle stories it is of course about much more: marriage, parenthood, love, loss, community, loneliness, and hope. Y'know, the small stuff. It's full of Doyle's trademark conversational gold, conveying huge emotions in spare, seemingly throwaway comments. The penultimate tale, Worms, floored me.