Published in 1999, A Star Called Henry is a novel written by Roddy Doyle, an Irish author. A Star Called Henry is the second book in “The Last Roundup” series. The protagonist of the novel is named Henry Smart. Smart, as a child, lived in the poverty stricken slums of Dublin, Ireland and grows up through both the slums in the 1900s as well as the Irish War of Independence. Politically, Ireland is in turmoil and complete chaos during the early 1900s, the time period during which the book was set.
Henry Smart is also the narrator, who is politically active in Ireland. He is member of the Irish Citizen Army and is a lookout during the first of the Irish War of Independence, and is later a gunman. Over the course of A Star Called Henry, which is an epic, a romance novel, and a history of Ireland all rolled into one adventurous novel, Smart realizes how futile killing and violence are in the quest to free Ireland and improve life there.
