FICTION

THE SNAPPER by Roddy Doyle (Penguin: $10 paper; 216 pp.) Doyle was virtually unknown in this country a year ago, before release of the film based on his first novel, “The Commitments.” He’s still virtually unknown here--how many filmgoers remember who wrote the screenplay, let alone the original novel?--but his second book should change that. “The Snapper” concerns the large Rabbitte family, headed by Jimmy Sr., and focuses on the pregnancy of Sharon Rabbitte (sister of Jimmy Jr., the manager of the soul band that starred in “The Commitments”) by a man she refuses to name. The novel has no plot to speak of--the father’s identity is speculated upon, Jimmy Sr. can’t decide whether to be embarrassed by Sharon’s situation, various Rabbittes have rows with friends and neighbors--but Doyle’s writing writing is so good the reader cares not a whit. “The Snapper” is about the mixed feelings and changing relationships generated in the Rabbitte household by Sharon’s pregnancy, and Doyle, writing almost entirely in dead-on, ribald Irish dialogue (“idiot” is spelled eejit ), has captured them with enormous wit and good humor. Few novels depict parent-child relationships--healthy relationships, no less--better than this one, and few men could write more sensitively about pregnancy. Don’t pass up this novel, nor the final volume in Doyle’s Rabbitte trilogy, “The Van” (Viking), which was short-listed for Britain’s Booker Prize last year.