Smile

When you finish the last page you will have been challenged to re-evaluate everything you think you remember so clearly.

Just moved in to a new apartment, alone for the first time in years, Victor Forde goes every evening to Donnelly's pub for a pint, a slow one. One evening his drink is interrupted.

A man in shorts and pink shirt brings over his pint and sits down. He seems to know Victor's name and to remember him from school. Says his name is Fitzpatrick.

Victor dislikes him on sight, dislikes too the memories that Fitzpatrick stirs up of five years being taught by the Christian Brothers. He prompts other memories too - of Rachel, his beautiful wife who became a celebrity, and of Victor's own small claim to fame, as the man who says the unsayable on the radio. But it's the memories of school, and of one particular Brother, that he cannot control and which eventually threaten to destroy his sanity.

'...brave and complex… will leave readers astonished… Like all good literature, it will inspire debate but also admiration for the courage of a hugely successful writer who refuses to be predictable.' - *The Guardian*

'An absorbing and expertly told story' - *The Financial Times*

Irish author [Roddy Doyle ](https://www.waterstones.com/author/roddy-doyle/3824)is best known for his 1993 Booker Prize-winning novel *[Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha](https://www.waterstones.com/book/paddy-clarke-ha-ha-ha/roddy-doyle/9780749397357)*. His other fiction includes *[The Commitments](https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-commitments/roddy-doyle/9780749391683)* (which was subsequently adapted for film), *[The Snapper](https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-snapper/roddy-doyle/9780749391256)* and *[The Van](https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-van/roddy-doyle/9780749399900)* (collectively known as the *[Barrytown Trilogy](https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-barrytown-trilogy/roddy-doyle/9780099590521)*) and *[Greyhound of a Girl](https://www.waterstones.com/book/greyhound-of-a-girl/roddy-doyle/9781407180977)* as well as children’s novels such as *[Brilliant](https://www.waterstones.com/book/brilliant/roddy-doyle/9781447248774), [Rover and the Big Fat Baby](https://www.waterstones.com/book/rover-and-the-big-fat-baby/roddy-doyle/9781509836864)* and *[The Giggler Treatment](https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-giggler-treatment/roddy-doyle/brian-ajhar/9781407139722)*.