Our Irish Book of the Month for August 2019
A father...is a necessary evil.- Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses
In Mad,Bad,Dangerous to Know Colm Toibin turns his incisive gaze to three of Ireland's greatest writers,Oscar Wilde,W.B. Yeats and James Joyce,and their earliest influences: their fathers.
From Wilde's doctor father,a brilliant statistician and amateur archaeologist,who was taken to court by an obsessed lover in a strange premonition of what would happen to his son; to Yeats'father,an impoverished artist and brilliant letter-writer who could never finish apainting; to John Stanislus Joyce,a singer,drinker and story-teller,a man unwilling to provide for his large family,whom his son James memorialised in his work.
Colm Toibin illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers,but also illustrates the surprising ways they surface in their work.
Publisher: Penguin Books LtdISBN: 9780241354421Number of pages: 192Weight: 138 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 12 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Toibin has a hawk-like eye for literary subtleties,and a generosity towards his subjects that is warm and unacademic.'- The Sunday Times
'There is something interesting and insightful on almost every page'- The Observer
'Searching,funny,generous'- The Irish Times
'Subtle,witty and often deeply moving'- New Statesman
'If there is a more brilliant writer than Toibin working today,I don't know who that would be'- Karen Joy Fowler
Colm Toibin
One of the most critically acclaimed of contemporary authors,Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist,poet and critic,whose work has scooped numerous literary awards and been nominated multiple times for the Booker Prize.
Visit the Colm Toibin author page
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