HALFWAY HOME

A memoir by turns sedulous and spirited of the life of Irish tenor Tynan—a man, it turns out, of many parts other than his set of fine pipes.

“Had I not the cross to bear that I did, and I had I not made my own sort of pilgrimage in bearing it, who can say whether I’d ever have been rewarded with all I’ve been given?” That’s as close to boasting as Tynan comes in this account of his first 40 years. Born with focamelia, a bilateral deformity below the knee, young Ronan had to wear corrective braces, which squelched his competitive drive not a whit. He just kept doing the things that gave him pleasure: playing at sports, riding horses, singing with energy while walking in the fields of his family’s farm, pursuing those classes in school that interested him. When he was 20, he had his lower legs amputated; within a year, he was taking medals in international track and field competitions for the disabled. He went to medical school, then took up a general practice in the countryside, all the while finding solace in the joys of his music. His life was a gunning swirl of activity until, at age 32, he decided he must focus on one of his enthusiasms at a time. Music won, though not without further mishaps and detours. Tynan is wonderfully unimpressed by the fame that came to him as one of the Irish Tenors and quick to give credit to all those around him for their support, especially his brick of a father. He doesn’t invite our admiration for his pluck. Working hard at life was simply his style, he maintains; he made a good number of bad moves, same as everyone else.

In other hands, this litany of overachievement would have sounded like an exercise in self-congratulation, but Tynan treats his impressive—actually, astounding—life matter-of-factly.