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Night Boat to Tangier

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Night Boat to Tangier

By: Kevin Barry
Narrated by: Kevin Barry
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About this listen
Gloriously freewheeling – Guardian

It's a Kevin Barry novel, so the brilliance is expected; everything else is a brilliant surprise – Roddy Doyle

The gods of literature, who have so much love for Ireland, are sweet on Kevin Barry – Richard Beard

It's late one night at the Spanish port of Algeciras and two fading Irish gangsters are waiting on the boat from Tangier. A lover has been lost, a daughter has gone missing, their world has come asunder - can it be put together again?

Night Boat to Tangier is a novel drenched in sex and death and narcotics, in sudden violence and old magic, but it is obsessed, above all, with the mysteries of love. A tragicomic masterwork from a multi-award-winning writer, Night Boat to Tangier is both mordant and hilarious, lyrical yet laden with menace.
©2019 Kevin Barry (P)2019 Canongate Books Ltd Dark Humour Genre Fiction Literature & Fiction Urban Fiction Witty Heartfelt

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Critic reviews

“Barry is a marvel: menacing, insistent, switching from brooding descriptions of the men’s nocturnal surroundings to their terse dialogue. The conviction with which he explores their search for Charlie’s missing daughter never fails.” (Financial Times, Audiobooks)

"A true wonder." (Max Porter)
All stars
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Switched between reading and listening and I have to say the reader ruined it for me. the pacing was wrong and the prosody sometimes hysterical. good story. probably shouldn't win the Booker. definite influences from Beckett (Godot) and some brilliant single lines ("there wasn't a sparrow safe for miles"). Barry has a brilliant comic sense. But, it is not matched by his darkness.

Better read than listen

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I should have read this rather than listened.
Enjoyed the story, the sentiment and the flowery blarney.

The port of UHOA!

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Fantastic pleasure to read!
Must listen to again and then again!
Such characters, such writing, such enjoyment!

Utterly brilliant

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There have been mixed opinions regarding the narration of this novel with some taking against the style of the author's narration. I have to say I really enjoyed his voice. I listened with headphones and felt a deep connection with the lyrical lilt of the Cork accents. Many have compared the writing to Beckett and Joyce and I appreciate these comparisons. What I most enjoyed was the two old gangsters joining forces, after a mixed life of crime, on a doomed mission and their sense of time lost and time passing. I also loved the female perspectives and would have liked more of their insights. Descriptions of landscape are gorgeous and tremendously evocative. All in all I found this a truly engaging and moving novel. As I've said, I enjoyed the narration but if you are one of the few who don't then I'd urge you to read it in book form so as not to deny yourself the rich and rewarding pleasures of the novel.

A Thing of Rare Beauty

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I found it very annoying that the author read it out whispering all the way through. Good book but it spoiled the experience.

Whispering ruins it

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mesmeric, perfectly freighted, weighted and narrated. Genuinely faultless and perfect for audio instead of text

superlative, perfect in all parts

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Very much in the tradition of Irish writing. Word crafted with great care. It sings!
It is reminiscent of Beckett and Joyce in a cerebral way.
Kevin’s reading is intense - honouring the writing days he put into it.
His delivery is a bit too theatrical.
Can I suggest a hot tip. Listen to it at 1.25 speed rather than 1.00. I found that much better.

Wonderful- Shades of Joyce and Beckett

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Don't read you own prose like you are having an orgasm. Do me a voice or two (it gets dull listening to one tone all day). Don't take poetic licence and throw fcuks in there by the truck load to dress down the colourful prose when you're writing in 3rd person POV. Don't give me it's authentic Ireland.

I felt the Book is about the authors ability to write rather than telling us a story. I was asking myself if Kevin Barry is that smart kid I knew from school who thought intelligence was soft so he cursed a lot and smoked?

STORY IS KING. Where is the story? Two old men talk about the good old bad days while hoping to bump into the MC's estranged daughter. That's it! The odd flashback I don't mind, but a story inside a (non)stort? No thanks.

I hope the critical acclaim doesn't send Barry's ego into another Barry world. But something tells me that boat has sailed.

Self indulgent writer with flashes of brilliance

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I couldn't read City of Bohane, I just couldn't get through it but thought I'd give this a spin. So happy I did.

Once you get used to Barry's voice, easier if you are Irish, he actually lends an authenticity you wouldn't get from another narrator.

A kind of modern day Waiting for Godot crossed with Snatch. Thoroughly enjoyable.

I'm a convert

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Two old men ranting about their past. Not sure how deep this was. Some great descriptions, scenery and characters though. Dark and moody.

Great descriptions, not that deep

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