A review of “Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know” in 100 words by Catherine Stover
I remember the Bad Old Days well, when it was thought that the word “I” weakened any writing that contained facts. Yes, we actually believed then that impersonal writing was “objective” because the writer’s bias was hidden. Fortunately, we’re over that. Now we have open-hearted, elegant works like this one that are “searching, funny, exploratory, generous, with a willingness to reach out and humanize through frequent acts of empathy . . .” When Colm Tóibín writes about great Irish writers and their families, I savor his prose and his presence as much as his insights. It’s a rich, beautiful experience.
Work cited:
Tóibín, Colm. Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce. Scribner, 2018, p.1.