Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 224
New Irish Biographies, Autobiographies and Memoirs
Brian Moore: A Biography by Patricia Craig
Hardback; 30.00 Euro / 35.00 USD / 23.00 UK; Bloomsbury, 306 pages [Add To Basket]
'The only wise prediction to make about a new Brian Moore novel is that it will be unpredictable and wise,' wrote Christopher Ricks reviewing 'Black Robe', one of the twenty magnificent novels which put Brian Moore into the first rank of world writers. Northern Ireland may have shaped him, as he grew up one of nine children in a Catholic doctor's Belfast household, but World War II took him to Africa and war-ravaged Europe, and Canada freed him to become a writer. It was in London in 1955 that he first published 'The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne', the first of many novels which led steadily to international critical acclaim. The United States became his home, though he was no more likely to be pigeon-holed by a single country than to write the same novel under a different guise. He was a writer's writer, baffling contemporaries who wondered how he pulled off his literary feats while remaining accessible to everyone. Above all, he could wield a marvellous plot, create characters - male, and perhaps especially female - who would burst into life, and he could kindle atmospheres of haunting tension, historical vividness or metaphysical mystery.
In this, the first authorised biography, Patricia Craig impeccably pieces together the colourful and peripatetic life that lay behind the novels. She also reveals the droll, romantic, cant-hating, affable and brilliant man who so disarmingly enhanced twentieth-century letters.
The Billy Boy: The Life and Death of LVF Leader Billy Wright by Chris Anderson
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; Mainstream Publishing, 207 pages [Add To Basket]
Since his death in 1997, Billy 'King rat' Wright has become a cult figure for many loyalists, his image appearing on numerous wall murals throughout Northern Ireland's loyalist communities. Revered and respected by loyalists, despised and feared by nationalists, Wright is reputed to have been involved in a number of sectarian murders before he himself was shot dead by republican gunmen inside the Maze Prison in 1997.
Wright became involved with loyalist paramilitaries at the age of 16 when he joined the UVF's junior wing. In the early 1990s he emerged as the UVF Commander in the Mid-Ulster area and, through a deliberate policy of 'taking the war to the enemy', effectively neutered the IRA East Tyrone and North Armagh units.
This book documents Wright's role in the Drumcree dispute of 1995-6 and his split from the UVF, recounting how he ignored both a death threat and an order to leave Northern Ireland within 72 hours, only to remain in Portadown and form the Loyalist Volunteer Force. It covers Wright's trial and subsequent imprisonment for a crime it has been claimed was set up by the state, recounts the circumstances of his killing inside a top security prison, and investigates the allegations of state collusion in Wright's death.
Rory & Ita by Roddy Doyle
Hardback; 21.99 Euro / 26.50 USD / 15.99 UK; Jonathan Cape, 338 pages [Add To Basket]
This book is Roddy Doyle's first non-fiction book. It tells - largely in their own words - the story of his parents' lives from their first memories to the present. Born in 1923 and 1925 respectively, they met at a New Year's Eve dance in 1947 and married in 1951. They remember every detail of their Dublin childhoods - the people (aunts, cousins, shopkeepers, friends, teachers), the politics (both came from Republican families), idyllic times in the Wexford countryside for Ita, Rory's apprenticeship as a printer. Ita's mother died when she was three; Rory was the oldest of nine children, five of them girls. By the time they put down a deposit of two hundred pounds for a house in Kilbarrack, Rory was working as a compositor at the Irish Independent. By the time of the first of their four children was born, he had become a teacher at the School of Printing in Dublin. Kilbarrack and Dublin and Ireland began to change. Through their eyes the reader sees the intensely Catholic society of their youth being transformed into the vibrant, modern Ireland of today. Both Rory and Ita Doyle are marvellous talkers, with excellent memories, so combined with Roddy's legendary skill in illuminating ordinary experience, it makes for a book of tremendous warmth and humanity.
Halfway Home by Ronan Tynan
Trade Paperback; 14.99 Euro / 17.50 USD / 10.99 UK; Bantam Press, 271 pages, with 16 page photo insert [Add To Basket]
In this autobiography, Ronan Tynan, a member of the enormously popular Irish Tenors, shares his moving life story - a story Barbara Walters calls 'so amazing you may find it hard to believe' - of overcoming adversity and attaining worldwide success in several different fields. Diagnosed with a lower-limb disability at birth, Tynan had his legs amputated below the knee when he was twenty years old. Eight weeks later he was climbing the stairs of his college dormitory, and with a year he was winning races in the Paralympic Games, amassing eighteen gold medals and fourteen world records. After becoming the first disabled person ever admitted to the National College of Physical Education, he served a short stint in the prosthetics industry and began a new career in medicine. He continued his studies at Trinity College, where he specialized in orthopaedic sports injuries.
After earning his medical degree, Tynan chose music for the next act of his life. Less than one year after he began studying voice, he won both the John McCormack Cup for Tenor Voice and the BBC talent show 'Go For It'. He went on to win the prestigious International Operatic Singing Competition in France, and in 1998 his debut Sony album, 'My Life Belongs to You', become a top-five hit in England within just two weeks and eventually went platinum. Later that year he was invited to join the Irish Tenors, furthering a journey that started in a small Irish village and has brought him to the world's grandest stages.
John B. by Gus Smith and Des Hickey
Hardback; 20.00 Euro / 25.00 USD / 15.00 UK; Mercier, 351 pages, with two 8-page b/w photo inserts [Add To Basket]
John B. Keane, playwright, poet and fiction writer, was born in Listowel, County Kerry in 1928 and died in his home town on 30 May 2002. His first play, Sive, a rural tragedy of love and greed, was rejected by the Abbey Theatre but made a sensational impact on its first - amateur - production and has come to be seen as a classic work of Irish drama. Among his other notable plays are Sharon's Grave (1960), Big Maggie (1969) and The Field (1965), which was successfully filmed.
In this biography, originally published in 1992 and since updated, the two authors chart the progress of Keane's drama - and its reception by critics and the public - and explore the man behind the work. His beloved wife Mary, his family and his many friends in Listowel contributed their memories and their opinions of one of the great Irish writers of his generation - a man who, despite his great fame, continued to hold court for friends and visitors in his own public house in Listowel. The highs and lows of his personal life too play their part, and his sometimes controversial opinions of the issues of the day. The death of John B. Keane, after a long battle with cancer, was mourned by the Irish nation. He was a Listowel man, a Kerryman, and an Irishman; his appeal - whether as raconteur, playwright or novelist - was universal, and this biography does him proud!
Somewhere to Hang My Hat: An Irish-Jewish Journey by Stanley Price
Paperback; 12.99 Euro / 16.00 USD / 10.00 UK; New Island, 240 pages [Add To Basket]
Inspired by a search for the origin of his Lithranian-immigrant grandfather's unlikely name - Charles Beresford Price - the author of this book sets out to assemble his own identity from a multitude of fragments: rugby-playing, patriotic Irish; rebellious orthodox Jewish; Cambridge, anti-Establishment British; 1960s immigrant to America; not to mention, eventually, successful novelist and playwright.
Displaying a bulls-eye with, the author introduces the reader to a varied, Woody Allen-esque cast: the eccentric grandfather who was once famously asked by a Dublin policeman whether he was 'a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew'; the ageing spinster aunts Minne and Hilda, aka 'The Girls'; a wind-obsessed rabbi; and guest appearances from Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Marilyn Monroe. Criss-crossing both the Irish Sea and the North Atlantic, this perfectly paced and witty memoir also tells a little-know story: that of the Jews of Ireland - their history, culture and contribution.
Victor Bewley's Memoirs by Fiona Murdoch
Paperback; 11.95 Euro / 13.50 USD / 8.99 UK; Veritas, 112 pages [Add To Basket]
Victor Bewley was groomed from an early age to fill the role of managing director of Bewley's Oriental Cages - a position held by his father and grandfather before him. While he had enjoyed listening to his father's anecdotes, he had absolutely no interest in entering the family business. At the age of twenty-one, following the untimely death of his father, he was horrified to find himself at the helm of a growing fleet of cafes, preferring instead to have become an artist, concert pianist or missionary. The book, recounted to his journalist granddaughter several years before his death in 1999, reveals a sensitive man with a quiet determination to help others. His frank and vivid account of his life answers the following puzzling questions: What drove him to reach out a hand to the underprivileged, especially Travellers? Why did he describe parts of his life as 'undiluted hell'? How did he end up carrying secret messages from the IRA to the British Government? And why did he hand over the business to his staff in the 1970s?
Shackleton: An Irishman in Antarctica by Jonathan Shackleton and John MacKenna
Hardback; 25.00 Euro / 30.00 USD / 18.00 UK; Lilliput Press, 208 pages, with b/w photos throughout [Add To Basket]
Eight years after his death, the legend of Ernest Shackleton and the extraordinary story of the 'Endurance' South Pole expedition still hold a compelling grip on the public imagination. Trapped in drifting polar ice pack, Ernest Shackleton and his crew fought for survival against the odds. When the Endurance was finally crushed, they were stranded on ice-floes for more than a year before reaching Elephant Island in April 1916. From there Shackleton and his five men embarked on the most remarkable rescue mission in maritime history, sailing to South Georgia across eight hundred miles of the world's roughest seas in a small open boat.
Despite failing to realize his dream of reaching the South Pole, Shackleton's story lives on because of his unique qualities of leadership and the fact that all his men survived. This compelling narrative reveals the profound influence of Shackleton's Irish and Quaker roots, offering a vivid portrait of a man whose ambition was tempered by his flawed humanity and egalitarianism. Here too are the untold stories of Shackleton's upbringing in Kildare; his time in the Merchant Navy; his 1901 voyage on the Discovery with Scott; his 1907 Nimrod expedition; his marriage and love affairs; his life as a public figure and politician; and the haunting story of his final, fatal expedition on the Quest.
Drawing on family records, diaries and letters - and hitherto unpublished photographs and archive material - this mesmerizing book takes the reader beyond the myth of Shackleton the man, for whom 'Optimism is true moral courage,' and whose greatest triumph was that of life over death. The book is lavishly illustrated with over 100 photographs, maps and engravings, many of them appearing in print for the first time.
The Journeyman: A Builder's Life by Billy French
Paperback; 10.00 Euro / 12.50 USD / 7.50 UK; Wolfhound Press, 182 pages [Add To Basket]
Growing up in Dublin wasn't easy in the 1940s, but having a family trade helped. Old Dublin comes to life as Billy talks the reader through his years from builder's apprentice to man-about-town journeyman. His life is full of colourful characters including Christy Brown and family, Brendan Behan, Noel Purcell, Patrick Kavanagh, Mick McCarthy and the famous Embankment, and of course, Luke Kelly and the Dubliners. This intriguing book gives the reader a rare picture of Dublin as a growing town soon to become the capital city of today. His heart-warming memoirs and experiences bring to life Dublin as it used to be in ' the rare ould times.'
No Other Medicine, But Hope: Memoirs of a Minister's Wife by Marguerite McDaid
Paperback; 12.99 Euro / 15.00 USD / 10.00 UK; Blackwater Press, 218 pages, with photo insert [Add To Basket]
Having reached the end of her tether in 1998, Marguerite McDaid heeded the impassioned pleas of her family and fled the town of Letterkenny, Co Donegal in a final bid for survival. Not everyone, after thirty years of marriage, is forced to flee to London. Certainly not the wife of a local doctor and TD, who in 1997 had risen to the post of Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation in Bertie Ahern's Cabinet. Yet with all her worldly goods packed into a battered old Mazda and her young son in town, Marguerite did just that. In a poignant and riveting account, she raises the lid on the private demons that gripped her husband, and which would ultimately lead to the end of her marriage. With a new life in London pitted against the familiar one abandoned in Donegal, the dark but sometimes hilarious story of her time as a politician's wife is refreshingly told. Cast into a world of unscrupulous landlords and pressurised job-hunting, Marguerite slowly rebuilds her life. And with all the exciting opportunities that life in London affords, a new stronger, fulfilled woman emerges.
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