Mad, Bad, Dangerous To Know

Three Irish literary luminaries, three less than ideal fathers--to what extent can paternity claim a role in the development of a man of genius? The fathers are dissimilar in many respects, yet it is their similarities that hold this book together, their similarities and the city in which they all gained inspiration. Dublin was and still is the seed-bed for literary development. Wilde's father was an eminent physician, whose embroilment in a scandalous lawsuit foreshadowed his son's nasty entanglement with sexuality and the law. Yeats's father, John B., an excellent painter and letter-writer, was a financial failure who lived for many years in self-exile in the United States. And Joyce's father, an easily recognized figure in early 20th century Dublin, was renowned for his vocal ability, his story-telling skills, and his inability to support his family. The lives of these famous fathers paralleled each other and now and then intersected. Often, they turn up in their sons' or each other's son's literary works. What united them all, besides their human failings, seems to be the influence welded by life in Dublin's colorful streets and among her brilliant inhabitants and its reflection in the literary output of their sons.