Fear and Loathing in Dublin

Aodhan Madden

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1905483821 ISBN 13: 9781905483822

Publisher: Liberties Press, 2009

Fear and Loathing in Dublin is Aodhan Madden's unforgiving and honest, sometimes melancholic but often blackly funny recollection of his struggles as a young man grappling with his with his sexuality and the cold comfort that alcohol provided. Starting his writing career as a journalist with The Irish Press, he eventually emerged from his dark times as a sucessful playwright, taking many of his themes from his battles with his own demons. In 1970s Dublin, transformation is everywhere: people have money in their pockets and wear the latest fashions. But in the pubs and clubs of the city, following the death of his mother, Madden is being crushed by the weight of his closet homosexuality a desperate place for a sensitive young man in that homophobic time and is struggling with alcoholism and paranoid delusions. After a series of surreal drunken 'adventures' around the city, he checks himself in to St Patrick's Hospital where his own transformation begins. Madden writes movingly of his experiences in St Patrick's hospital, his sometimes dubious friendships with his fellow patients including a drag queen and a murderer and his battles with the authorities and the drink. He tells of how he eventually got his life back on course and launched a successful career as a playwright. Finally, he writes with great tenderness about his father, who lovingly stood by him through the worst of his troubles. This bleakly comic memoir, reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, makes for gripping, enthralling reading from the first page to the last.

Review:

There's no doubt that his candidly described struggles with drink, sexuality and other demons lend the narrative a depth...The book, though, has yet another and even more telling subject and that's his relationship with his widowed father, whose North Circular Road house he shared and who emerges gradually throughout these pages as a figure of grace, dignity and integrity. The author's loving depiction of this decent, concerned man, sometimes exasperated by his errant son but always tolerant of him, is what makes the memoir memorable. --The Irish Independent

This is a funny, sad, and frankly scary tale of redemption. --Alan Corr - RTÉ Guide

Everything about this book is good. --Books Ireland

[Madden's] memoir is a story of transformation that brings an era in Dublin back to life andconfronts the demons that brought low a generation of gay men --Gcn

Anguished tale of jaundiced subs and gay pubs.

Aodhan Madden s difficult odyssey is a testament to the devastating effects of a conservative and repressive culture...Madden's biography is compelling.--Joanne Savage Culture Northern Ireland- --Emmanuel Kehoe - Sunday Business Post

...is as compelling as anything Hunter S. ever wrote...As a work of entertainment, it's a winner. As a record of the experience of 'coming out'; in Catholic Ireland 30 years ago and the prejudice the Gay community had to deal with, it's superb. As a depiction of one man's descent into the depths of alcohol addiction and psychosis it's riveting. --Catherine McGrotty - Verbal

Anguished tale of jaundiced subs and gay pubs.

Aodhan Madden s difficult odyssey is a testament to the devastating effects of a conservative and repressive culture...Madden's biography is compelling.--Joanne Savage Culture Northern Ireland- --Emmanuel Kehoe - Sunday Business Post

Reminiscent at times of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Madden's story is laced with the acerbic wit of the Dublin meeja. It's a dark and at times disturbing memoir about intolerance, isolation, alcohol and self-loathing, but ultimately too it's about redemption and how the love and sacrifice of an aging father saved the life of a talented young writer seemingly on the road to self-destruction. --Fermanagh Herald

I was very taken with Aodhan Madden's Fear and Loathing in Dublin for its highly-charged depiction of a young man struggling with the twin demons of alcohol and a confused sexuality before literature saves him from himself. Most moving of all is the manner in which he writes about his father, a simple country man trying to cope with widowhood as his world falls apart and his son looks to be on a collision course with disaster. --Aubrey Malone, The Irish Catholic Books of 2009

This darkly funny memoir spares nothing, especially himself --Cahir O'Doherty, Irish Voice

Anguished tale of jaundiced subs and gay pubs.

Aodhan Madden s difficult odyssey is a testament to the devastating effects of a conservative and repressive culture...Madden's biography is compelling.--Joanne Savage Culture Northern Ireland- --Emmanuel Kehoe - Sunday Business Post

About the Author:

Aodhan Madden worked for many years as a journalist and critic with the Irish Press before taking up writing in a variety of media, including print, stage, radio and screen. The Abbey Theatre staged The Midnight Door in 1984, and his plays have been broadcast on RTÉ and the BBC. Madden also wrote the acclaimed film Night Train, which starred John Hurt and Brenda Blethyn. Madden has been the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the Francis MacManus Award and the O.Z. Whitehead (three times). He lives in Dublin.