Four middle-aged friends from Ireland take a week's vacation in Spain and reflect on life. New Yorker, 28 April 2008. " Bullfighting online text" Esaltante l’esordio col Sunderland, nondimeno la lettura si affievolisce col passaggio all’Ipswich, tramontando definitivamente con l’abbandono della panchina per diventare commentatore indolente e presenziare a eventi vari… colpo di coda nell’epilogo che si riscatta un pochetto. Even as a ghostwriter, the dramatising habits of fiction die hard. “There’s a little evil man in me who would want to change the results a bit – to have Millwall beat them in the cup final,” Doyle says. “But I think he’d have spotted it.” Screenplays include the television screenplay for Family (1994), which was a BBC/ RTÉ serial and the forerunner of the 1996 novel The Woman Who Walked into Doors. Doyle also authored When Brendan Met Trudy (2000), which is a romance about a timid schoolteacher (Brendan) and a free-spirited thief (Trudy).

I liked listening to Roy's take on life after Manchester United. His reflections on his time at Sunderland and what he learned at Ipswich. Most of all his contentment and enjoyment as No.2 for Ireland. Keane's eminent co-writer, Booker Prize-winning Irish author Roddy Doyle, does a brilliant job. His gift for comedy and swearing, together with his wonderfully transparent style, not only captures his country man's voice but also adds some much-needed light and shade to the unforgiving business of being Roy Keane. It's not a sentence I expected to write but the account of Keane's triumphant first season at Sunderland is particularly uplifting -- Neil O'Sullivan * FINANCIAL TIMES * With the children’s books, he says, he doesn’t seem to be as sure of himself. “I’ve always needed a good editor to nudge the story on. Certainly, if the book’s supposed to be a little bit mad the editors often try to get that little bit more madness in. And that’s all, invariably, grand.” Telford, Lyndsey (21 December 2011). "Seamus Heaney declutters home and donates personal notes to National Library". Irish Independent. Independent News & Media . Retrieved 21 December 2011.

Summary

After reading a few autobiographies of players and staff associated with Manchester United, certainly the biggest premiership club in past two decades, now in turmoil, Roy Keane's The Second Half is one of the most honest and straightforward memoir I have ever read. Early on, this book presents a mind-bending ontological puzzle regarding reality and perception. The book starts with Keane being hauled in front of a disciplinary board as a result of inflammatory comments in his former book, Keane. Of course though, Keane didn't write his last book, and he hasn't written this one either: this time he is channelled by Roddy Doyle, whereas the first was written by Eamon Dunphy. So what follows is a passage where Keane (via Doyle) explains how the words in Keane (by Dunphy) which Keane (as relayed by Doyle) is now being punished for were not Keane's words, but words pieced together by Dunphy, and how bewildered Keane (actually Doyle) is to be punished for the contents of Keane, which was really the responsibility of Dunphy. Got it? Doyle's writing is marked by heavy use of dialogue between characters, with little description or exposition. [14] His work is largely set in Ireland, with a focus on the lives of working-class Dubliners. Themes range from domestic and personal concerns to larger questions of Irish history. His personal notes and work books reside at the National Library of Ireland. [15] Novels for adults [ edit ] At first, I was extremely disappointed that the early chapters were simply debunking the sensationalism of the previous book - essentially Keane was saying that many of the accounts documented in his first book were false and overly sensationalised which seems odd - surely events weren’t exaggerated to create interest and sell more copies?

This book is a personal odyssey, a blend of anecdote and reflection which re-evaluates the meaning of success. In following his personal struggle to reinvent himself, confronting a few demons along the way, The Second Half blends memoir and motivational writing in a manner which both disquiets and reassures in Roy Keane's original voice, in a stunning collaboration brilliantly captured with Man Booker Prize-winning writer Roddy Doyle. Rory and Ita (2002) is a work of non-fiction about Doyle's parents, based on interviews with them. [1] Roddy Doyle: Keane was fantastic to work with right down to the proof-reading". The Score ( TheJournal.ie). 16 September 2014. Archived from the original on 4 October 2014 . Retrieved 9 October 2014. People miss the fact that Keane is funny. Caustic, yes, clenched, he'd admit. Angry (though no longer prone to rage, his book claims) more than most. But funny. The light touch in The Second Half is not exclusively Doyle's. Yet the heavy stuff compels ... The account of Keane's Sunderland reign is riveting. The everyday trials of a first-time manager are uncovered as in no other book ... The Second Half is brutally honest When Keane says anything, listening is usually the best option. He's scarily extreme, dangerously provocative, oxy-acetylene forthright ... and hugely entertaining ... Self-desctruction, self-pity, self-laceration - his latest unburdening has all this and more. His book reveals more flaws and admits to more mistakes than Sir Alex Ferguson did in his last literary effort - and Keane's is much funnier -- Aidan Smith * SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY *When Keane says anything, listening is usually the best option. He's scarily extreme, dangerously provocative, oxy-acetylene forthright ... and hugely entertaining ... Self-desctruction, self-pity, self-laceration - his latest unburdening has all this and more. His book reveals more flaws and admits to more mistakes than Sir Alex Ferguson did in his last literary effort - and Keane's is much funnier The rhythm of it compels attention - it's like someone talking directly to you in a pub ... It's a thoughtful book, for a footballer. But while it's taken a novelist to write his life, it may take a psychoanalyst to understand it -- Anthony Quinn * THE MAIL ON SUNDAY *