An intimate study of three of Ireland's greatest writers from one of its best-loved contemporary voices.

"A father... is a necessary evil." - Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses In Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know Colm Toibin takes three of Ireland's greatest writers - Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats and James Joyce - and examines their earliest influences; their fathers. With his inimitable wit and sensitivity, Toibin introduces us to Wilde Senior, the philandering doctor whose libel case prefigured that of his son; the elder Yeats, an impoverished artist who never finished a painting; and to John Stanislaus Joyce, the hard-drinking, storytelling father of James, who couldn't feed his own family.

This is an illuminating study of how each of these men cast a long shadow not only over the lives of their famous sons, but over the works for which they are celebrated and cherished.

"Astonishing to read. Toibin has a hawk-like eye for literary subtleties, and a generosity towards his subjects that is warm" - Sunday Times
"Funny, exciting, illuminating, wonderful, so engaging. Tells us more than a little about our own selves along the way." - Irish Times
"There is something interesting and insightful on almost every page." - Observer
"Sparkling, subtle, witty and often deeply moving... a classic" - Fintan O'Toole, New Statesman
"Scintillating, imaginative, enlightening and powerfully moving throughout" - Roy Foster, Spectator