BRENNAN'S BOOK

by Garrett Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 9, 1972

A book about a book about a hard-drinking Irish author, Eamonn O'Connor, who dies, as golden lads and lasses must, from cirrhosis of the liver -- actually a self-admitted roman a clef (shades of Thomas, shades of Behan). The original memoir by Brennan (igitur ""Brennan's Book"") is a travesty, so the dilettantish but rather charming narrator (Patrick Concannon) avers, thereby setting out to correct the picture, particularly of Brennan -- the bard's practical muse -- who propelled him toward tinsel success and his untimely end. The book is rather more interesting than it has any right to be, concerned as it is with denigrating a rather obviously unpleasant American academic-cum-entrepreneur, full of the tedious parochial blather and blarney of Irish bar chat -- leaving the reader wondering with the author whether certain people's talents lie more in self-projection than literary expertise. The book will appeal most to those Hiberniaphiles interested in the semi-mythic Dublin of the '50's, when giants were still thought to walk the earth in the form of perpetually drunken has-beens who, one cannot help thinking, perhaps never were; the rest of the world will probably be glad enough to pass them by.

Pub Date: Feb. 9, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1972

Categories: FICTION