Cameo

by Rob Doyle

Cameo is the life story of invented Irish novelist Ren Duka, who has unexpected, runaway international success with a prolific series of autofictional novels.

What begins as a playful satire on literary ambition and the chaos of our times expands into a dazzling, polyphonic odyssey that challenges the border between fiction and reality.

As the Ren Duka novels race outwards in widening circles of influence, we encounter Dina Tatangelo, cult novelist of the New York underworld; a Japanese manga artist whose work eerily affects his family life; a grizzled Dublin taxi driver who just might ferry his passengers between worlds; a film-star facing public disgrace; and Rob Doyle, an author enduring a psychic and ontological crisis.

Cameo is at once a metaphysical architecture of the imagination, a human comedy full of unruly passions, and a self-portrait across multiple dimensions.

Genres: Fiction, Ireland, Contemporary

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 22, 2026

About the author

Rob Doyle’s first novel, Here Are the Young Men, is published by Bloomsbury, and was chosen as a book of the year by The Irish Times, Sunday Times, Sunday Business Post, and Independent. It was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Newcomer of the Year. His second book, This Is the Ritual, will be published in January 2016 (Bloomsbury / Lilliput). Rob’s fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times, Sunday Times, Sunday Business Post, Gorse, Dalkey Archive’s Best European Fiction 2016 and elsewhere.

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Doyle’s debut, loved his second book, then soured on his work circa Threshold, which I found unpleasant to read and disingenuous in its use of the conventions of autofiction – which, to some extent, Cameo also is. There’s no denying, though, that this is an immensely fun and well-crafted book, as well as being exactly the sort of thing I can’t resist: a metafictional series of stories inside stories, with subtle elements of the strange and uncanny. (That cover, all frames within frames, is perfect for it.) Happily, it’s most similar to This is the Ritual, with its focus on a group of fictitious writers, their books, and how the two loop into each other. Loved the rhythm of this; it just really works.

I received an advance review copy of Cameo from the publisher through NetGalley.

[helena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rob Doyle really is that bitch.

[Conor Dooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes that was a lot of fun.

[James Durkan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cameo / Rob Doyle

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

~ The essence of the Ren Duka cycle is panache, if you're asking me. Hidden depths and an intangible poignancy… ~

This is my first Rob Doyle since Here Are The Young Men, and my word. It’s so original, it’s so mind bending, it’s just so good. NGL, half the time I was asking WTF is this? But in saying that the pages turned quick!

You’re brought through a series of darkness, moral and political questionability, you clearly want to know where does Ren Duka stand? What does he really believe? It’s as though throughout all these questions we keep getting guided through.

The stories being interconnected, some more obvious than others, bring around the same core values from different stances. The aforementioned Cameo was brilliant. It lands where it could have gone awry.

I don’t care if I missed the point as I’m taking this as what it is. Nothing is there for the sake of it, it carries legit space to spur in. This has heart. This has soul.

It has that feeling though of a short story collection, but totally works where it shouldn’t. As they say, End it with the Laughter.

TBR Pile: Graig
Bought from: Bookstation Carlow - 19/01/26

Read: 04/02/26 - 05/02/26
Release Date: 22/01/26
ISBN: 9781399631082

[Jack Kennedy]

By some margin Doyle's oddest novel to date, certainty his most original, and possibly his best. It's a combination of numerous strands which will sound like complete nonsense when I attempt to describe them, but nevertheless hold together better than you'd think: a summary and discussion of the various auto fictional novels of the fictional author Ren Duka, commentary by various people in some way related to him, and excerpts from novels that may or may not relate to him in some strange way including a seemingly autobiographical novel and also an account of a taxi driver in a futuristic dystopian Dublin. It is spill-your-coffee-all-over-your-trousers-funny, gleefully offensive and very arch. I'm not sure I really got it as a novel: it's very meta and borderline masturbatory, but despite its formal daring and unique structure it is still mostly a rollicking good read. A rare example of something elevated and exceedingly puerile at the same time.
Towards the end, the summaries of the novels lose a bit of steam, perhaps an audacious form that slightly pushed further than it needed to be. The end is somewhat of a head scratcher too: when I finished this novel I wasn't entirely sure what Doyle intended to me to think, other than 'wow, that boy can surely write.'

[Declan Franks]

REN DUKA
KUN DERA

[Marc Faoite · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yeah, no. I was looking forward to this, but unfortunately it's going on the did not finish pile. It will also be relegated to the will never finish bin. Necrophilia with mutilated corpses is not my thing. If it's not yours either then this is probably not the book for you. And if it is, well, you need help. Very disappointing offering from the sick, sick mind of a brilliant writer. Sigh.

[Gnosis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was highly compelling and I read it unusually fast.
It made me genuinely laugh as well as feel disturbed and uncomfortable. There were even a few moments of poignancy. Initially sceptical, I came to admire Doyle's metafictional conceits. I would advise the reader not to bother trying to make sense of that aspect of the novel and to simply float downstream on it, letting it wash over them (I say the same for reading Burroughs, although Doyle is much lighter work).
Cameo was almost a collection of very different short stories. My favourites included the darkly comic episode involving Islamic State reminiscent of Vonnegut's 'Mother Night' and the gradually unfolding biography of a disturbed adolescent guitarist for a short-lived avant-garde punk band, whose fascistic ideals are ambiguously ironic. This guitarist is of course Ren Duka, who also takes the role of ISIS captive/propagandist, controversial novelist and time traveller to the Third Reich. Ren Duka is the principal returning protagonist, although there are intermissions exploring the perspectives of a disgraced gay actor, a Japanese manga artist, a Dublin taxi driver, the author himself and a New York no-wave Catholic junkie writer. All this ultimately culminates in a bizarre nondualist metaphysical climax.
'Cameo' also examined the act of writing itself, both prosaically and exotically; writing is presented almost as an occult act, adjacent to feverish insanity - which reminded me of the film version of 'Naked Lunch' (not the book itself) in a good way.
This novel did contain a lot of unpleasantness - a lot of addiction and suicide, some paedophilia (not depicted), some necrophilia (depicted), sex with religious figures and a lot of deranged moral ideas, almost resembling a litany of intrusive thoughts. This is still light compared to the aforementioned 'Naked Lunch' (the novel, not the film) where all of that happens on one page. Unpleasantness isn't a bad thing though; it's important to confront.
Finally, I must credit Doyle for writing about the 21st Century zeitgeist in a mostly convincing way, which I perceive to be quite challenging. He writes about ketamine, accelerationism and the Internet without sounding like a knock-off Mark Fisher, he satirises 'woke' politics and cancel-culture without sounding like a talking head from The Spectator. I also liked the passing illustration of 'London creatives.'
Ultimately a very good novel relatively hot off the press.

[Andrew Verlaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Cameo" is Rob Doyle's funniest book to date, and perhaps his most poignant. It's also his most aggressively meta, wherein a character called Ren Duka pens a series of semi-autobiographical novels. Though some are close to his own life, others stray into the more surreal. We are given a series of often ribald synopses of these novels, along with titbits from the life of Ren Duka himself. The novels by Ren Duka often contain stories within the story, penned by the fictitious version of Ren Duka. Oh, and there's a character called Rob Doyle who makes a *cameo* as well.

The novel wears its influences on its sleeve; an epigraph from Borges is a nod to the influence of that great writer on this work. One minor gripe in this area is that a later chapter is heavily indebted to Gaspar Noé's "Enter the Void" in a manner that to me felt a bit derivative, or perhaps a reminder of how overwhelming that movie is in itself.

Overall, this is a fast ride that riffs on authorship, cancel culture, identity, wasted youth and perhaps life itself as someone who tries to mirror life in art. Well worth a look.

[Michael Schein · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has all the elements I usually like. Stories within stories. Strange artists doing mysterious work with hidden messages. Questions about what is real. And yet it didn’t work. It was full of cliches but seemed to be trying to convince us all along how original it all was. Morose narrators snorting coke at techno clubs (yes, he called it techno) while musing on the futility of life. The writer protagonist who somehow has endless time for orgies and benders and periodic retreats to seaside retreats to dry out, all the while implying how much more sophisticated he is than all the rest of us bu his clear eyed understanding of the TRUTH. Yeah yeah, I’m sure this is all part of the game. The books seems set up to provide plausible deniability against all criticisms by saying “it’s all satire.” But if it’s satire, what is it satirizing and why should we care? What it did have going for it was one cool section about a manga artist. And it was a pretty easy read, for whatever that’s worth.

[Dorian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't really write a review of this without being paid. It's absolutely brilliant. Forces the contemporary reader, though darkness, brutality and extreme moral and political transgressions to ask and moralise about the author itself. What are his stances? Doyle knew this would be the response of the contemporary fiction reader with his pointed and directional transgressions. And the novel explodes this question from a vast array of angles, interlocking in narratives that are entirely different yet universal, circling outward. But it also answers it, literally, when Rob Doyle - the author that has slapped and insulted and delighted and pushed and pushed us - makes a Cameo. That moment, even though it is somewhat spoiled by the dust jacket, was a total stroke of genius art.

Aside from the transgressive elements, the novel has a beating heart and a complex, interlocking and hefty soul. The violences help this, making room for the light and the vulnerability of the human condition in horrific and absolute contrasts. This is my first Booker prediction of the year.

Btw I had the most awful and terrifying dreams reading this.

[Mairead Hearne (swirlandthread.com)]

I had no expectations when I started Cameo as I am not familiar with Rob Doyle's work. Unfortunately I almost DNFed it on a number of occasions, but I persisted as I was convinced there was something beyond my grasp that I would eventually understand. But no there wasn't. I did read to the end but I'm afraid Cameo was just not for me.

[Siofra Ferriter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rob Doyle is the type of person I would hate to get stuck talking to at a party. Very difficult to take a book seriously when the descriptions of sex are so pornographic and male…. This book thinks it’s a lot more intelligent than it is, it’s like he’s trying really hard to be a mad genius but it’s over written and gets cumbersome halfway through

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

i read that doyle is a big houellebecq fanboy / says hes super influential on his writing which is funny cos he is so much more skilled and interesting in every way than houellebecq. LOVED this i love the meta layers and the bold weird narrative and form choices. swing big! be audacious!

[Cian Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

First Rob Doyle novel, picked it up because I was in easons and I'd read a sample in Tolka. Absolutely loved it, loved getting lost in this increasingly intricate web of narrators, stories and perspectives.

[Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sublime

[Lewis Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Doyle’s best work yet.

[Patrick Hewett · Rating 3 out of 5]

just fine

[Pranavesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

no one is doing it quite like rob doyle is doing it

[Darcy Knorr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fucking hell that was amazing. Not sure what to say, need to read more of Doyle’s stuff

[Chris Newens · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best Roberto Bolano novel since 2666.

[Tama · Rating 4 out of 5]

A chapter/story finishes:
“He finishes the drawing in a state of serene satisfaction, then contemplates the image in silence.”
‘Ren Duka’s Childhood’: A book supposed to cover a whole childhood. You want more. Going back to it it feels right/enough. A way to end childhood, a profound realisation on a subculture of the classroom and its innocent minds concerned with machines on paper.

“On the final page, looking back across decades, Ren Duka recognises that all of his life's seeking and questioning, his appetites and addictions, his opiates and alcohol, were expressions of a longing to experience again the sense of wholeness and bliss he felt one magical afternoon in Goodison Park, when Beardsley buried the ball in the top corner and the crowd - we - lost ourselves in a joy beyond language.” To be moved by this fictional sentiment. At least crafted (I don’t know if Doyle has experienced this joy before) in a fictional sequence of events where the dopamine of football fandom can realise a life’s peak.

When reading Threshold I relished the challenging concept of adapting the book to film. That’s how I can most flatter a piece of writing. It would’ve been pretty close adaptation, why bother? Ren Duka’s adaptation would be episodes bringing the synopses to extended reality, with little moments from nowhere, and between the lines. With a more encouraging and familiar through line of the Duka character, something a little less esoteric for not being named Rob Doyle, whom I invisioned as the Threshold character. Ren Duka in my head is short and stocky and a with poorer hygiene, (maybe it gets better along the timeline, and his hair is longer than two inches into adulthood as well). It may be helpful think this way but inevitably cast Doyle as Duka in an episode more closely resembling his age at the time of production.

“I found myself thinking about those musical acts I'd listened to twenty years earlier who were still around, and how they were granted publicity out of nostalgia and habit but no one really expected the music to be any good.” This is the way we all think of these old celebrities but may not have heard put to paper like this. There are certain artists who outlive or persist in a way thats in tune with who we think them to be (Iggy Pop for example, or even less a tribute to oneself but a creative force Bowie for example.)

Glimpsing a chapter named Rob Doyle is a pleasant surprise.
I feel a cruel satisfaction reading Doyle cannibalising himself, giving me reasons to look on him as a lesser human than the man who wrote ‘Threshold,’ and ‘Autobibliography.’ (As the book ends the doubt comes back about everything detailed in the book, can any of it be trusted? Probably. What though? It’s such a useful doubt for an author to hold over their readers. It makes everything more powerful for its potential to have occurred, toying with the suspension of disbelief, making it satisfying when it’s broken and quickly put back together because you can’t suspend it without coming to need it again like an addict.

I look forward to adapting ‘Seventeen Suicides,’ a challenge to condense seventeen stories of suicide into an hour-long. Seventeen (or less) three and a bit minute sequences. Marlene Dietrich songs don’t tend to be much longer than that. #1-3 would probably be a minute or less, whereas #4-17 include at least two elements, the method of death and detail paired with it.