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Featured on Episode 7 of the LoveReading Podcast
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Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know Synopsis
In Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know Colm Tóibín 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 Tóibín 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.
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Press Reviews
Colm Toibin Press Reviews
A wide-ranging and enlightening study of the potentially stifling family and the individual spirit of the writer - Sunday Times on 'New Ways to Kill Your Mother'
A consistently revealing look at how writers' relationships have influenced their work - Sunday Telegraph on 'New Ways to Kill Your Mother'
Toibin is a supple, subtle thinker, alive to hints and undertones, wary of absolute truths - New Statesman
If there is a more brilliant writer than Toibin working today, I don't know who that would be -- Karen Joy Fowler 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 intriguing to be found on almost every page -- Rachel Cooke - Guardian
Author
About Colm Toibin
Colm Tóibín was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of eight novels including Blackwater Lightship, The Master and The Testament of Mary, all three of which were nominated for the Booker Prize, with The Master also winning the IMPAC Award, and Brooklyn, which won the Costa Novel Award. He has also published two collections of stories and many works of non-fiction. His most recent novel is Nora Webster. He lives in Dublin.
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