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  • Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

  • The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce
  • By: Colm Tóibín
  • Narrated by: Colm Tóibín
  • Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (6 ratings)

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Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

By: Colm Tóibín
Narrated by: Colm Tóibín
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Publisher's Summary

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know, written and read by Colm Tóibín.

'A father...is a necessary evil.' (Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses)

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 a painting; to John Stanislus Joyce, a singer, drinker and storyteller, 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.
©2018 Colm Tóibín (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Authors Historical Essays European Relationships Fatherhood
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Great Irish Author Colm Tóibín

This book was excellent. I chose it more so based on the author than his story of the fathers of three brilliant literary canonical figures. Toibin is a master of the language. His every word is delicate, thoughtful and picturable. Descriptions of old Dublin streets, houses, bars, and other significant landmarks; the lives and world of the privileged; the generations of artistic talent and the sadness inherent in these lives make for such compelling reading. If you are not familiar with the works of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce, this is your opportunity to discover a rich contextual background of the authors, and further, appreciate some of the great Irish writers of our time. Colm Toibin, in time, will become one of these great Irish greats!

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