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Walking with Ghosts
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About This Book
As a young boy growing up in the outskirts of Dublin, Gabriel Byrne sought refuge in a world of imagination among the fields and hills near his home, at the edge of a rapidly encroaching city. Born to working class parents and the eldest of six children, he harbored a childhood desire to become a priest. When he was eleven years old, Byrne found himself crossing the Irish Sea to join a seminary in England. Four years later, Byrne had been expelled and he quickly returned to his native city. There he took odd jobs as a messenger boy and a factory laborer to get by. In his spare time, he visited the cinema where he could be alone and yet part of a crowd. It was here that he could begin to imagine a life beyond the grey world of 60s Ireland. He reveled in the theatre and poetry of Dublin's streets, populated by characters as eccentric and remarkable as any in fiction, those who spin a yarn with acuity and wit. It was a friend who suggested Byrne join an amateur drama group, a decision that would change his life forever and launch him on an extraordinary forty-year career in film and theatre. Moving between sensual recollection of childhood in a now almost vanished Ireland and reflections on stardom in Hollywood and Broadway, Byrne also courageously recounts his battle with addiction and the ambivalence of fame. Walking with Ghosts is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking as well as a lyrical homage to the people and landscapes that ultimately shape our destinies.
Reviews
"In this intimate memoir, Irish actor Byrne charts his rocky rise to stardom and his battles with alcoholism ..."
"That passage is one of many that show the mark of a real writer, a born storyteller with a poet's ear."
"In contrast to magical imagery paying homage to Ireland's soulful and glorious traditions and history, Byrne's intimate reflections on everything from the church to the theater also transport readers to impoverished places populated by the proud yet flawed men and women who influenced him in profound and sometimes perverse ways ..."
"Particularly heartbreaking is his account (both witnessed and imagined) of his beloved sister's mental illness ..."
"There's no cheerful tone of dues-paying here: Pride isn't in Byrne's nature ..."
"I have read many biographies and autobiographies in my lifetime, but nothing compares to actor Gabriel Byrne's memoir ..."
"And, in the act of writing, he comes to a deeper understanding of the secrets that they held close in a culture that was the opposite of our own: tight-lipped, parochial, perhaps suffocating, but also quietly decent and dignified."
"It shouldn't mesh but the In Treatment star is a graceful stylist who candidly describes his sister's mental illness and his own molestation by a priest while finding elegant connections between childhood longings and adult mistakes."
"Byrne is unsparing of himself in the telling of this story ..."
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