The Deportees and Other Stories
Roddy Doyle, Viking, 2008

The Deportees and Other Stories

Roddy Doyle, Viking, 2008

As America lurches toward a presidential election, two issues are certain to loom large: race and immigration. Barack Obama has forced Americans to consider that race might not be as much of a non-issue as we’d like to think it is, and voices from a variety of quarters are sure to fan the fear of immigrants as November approaches. But if we were able to step back and see things from outside our particular cultural perspective, we might realize that the problem of American race relations is a product of our specific history, solvable only if we face up to what who we really are, and that our immigration problem really isn’t that much of a problem at all. Walk down a street in London, where English is the language you are perhaps least likely to hear spoken, and you’ll understand that America is in no danger of being overrun by outsiders. Look somewhere like Dublin, where centuries of ethnic homogeneity make for an environment in which outsiders stand out, and you’ll get a glimpse of a culture that is especially – and understandably – uneasy about an influx of immigrants.

That opportunity to gain insight into our culture by examining someone else’s is something that makes Roddy Doyle’s The Deportees and Other Stories of interest even to those who aren’t interested in Ireland or Doyle’s work in particular. These stories of the immigrant experience in modern-day Dublin are as delightfully Irish as all of Doyle’s novels, but they are also an arresting snapshot of an especially vibrant part of the contemporary world, a snapshot that may give us all – even us Americans – a glimpse of our future. 

As Ireland has enjoyed extraordinary economic success over the past decade or two, it has been transformed from a relatively poor country full of downtrodden, often persecuted natives to a glistening promised land, a country that attracts a flood of newcomers where previously there were few. Ireland, once a place that even its natives felt compelled to flee, is now one of the most desirable destinations in the world. What are the Irish to think of all these immigrants? How are the natives to cope with them and how are the immigrants to cope with the natives? These are the questions that Doyle sets out to examine (but not answer) in this collection of stories originally published in an Irish immigrant-run newspaper. 

The immigrants in Doyle’s stories are, more often than not, African. In “Guess Who’s Coming for the Dinner,” a Nigerian man is brought home by the daughter of a regular Irish guy, and in “New Boy,” a nine-year-old African refugee endures his first day at an Irish school. In “Black Hoodie,” an Irish boy tries to impress his friend, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, and in “I Understand,” yet another African man struggles for respect on the mean streets of Dublin. 

There are a few variations on the theme, however. “Home to Harlem” follows a black Irishman to New York, where he hopes to find a clue to his past, a clue that will help him understand where he fits in the global cultural puzzle. “The Pram” is a ghost story (a chilling one with an underlying cultural metaphor) that concerns a young Polish immigrant, and “57% Irish” is a parody of the not so distant future, in which a resident’s legal status will be determined by a subjective test to gauge the person’s level of Irishness. “The Deportees” is the lightest of the stories, a sequel to Doyle’s novel The Commitments; this time around manager Jimmy Rabbitte, older but not much wiser, decides to form a new band, this time one consisting entirely of immigrants playing Woody Guthrie songs.

All of the stories are typical Doyle: agile and full of humor, biting yet amiable, bitter yet hopeful and always, again, undeniably Irish. Doyle seems most at ease when he makes an Irishman grapple with the immigrant question – as he does with the heroes of “Guess Who’s Coming for the Dinner,” “57% Irish” and “The Deportees” – and forces them to deal with the prospect of making room for foreigners on their home turf. He seems less at ease when speaking from the point of view of the foreigners (his Africans are uniformly rigid, polite and detached, child-like, not entirely convincingly animated).

Still, Doyle doesn’t shy away from any of the complexities of Irish-immigrant relations, even the uglier aspects of the situation; his stories offer a surprising amount of hope in the middle of all the turmoil. He suggests that, despite the pain caused by its rapid growth, Ireland just might find a way to deal with its new place in the world. And, if that’s the case, the little country could provide a template for the rest of us to follow.