Hailed as the new O'Casey by Irish critics in 1958, Behan is now often portrayed as the archetypal Irishman and spectacular drunk. Behind the myth lies the more compelling story of a writer who was never able to fully harness his larger-than-life personality and talent.

This miracle of autobiography and prison literature begins: "Friday, in the evening, the landlady shouted up the stairs: 'Oh God, oh Jesus, oh Sacred Heart, Boy, there's two gentlemen here to see you.' I knew by the screeches of her that the gentlemen were not calling to inquire after my health . . . I grabbed my suitcase, containing Pot. Chlor., Sulph Ac, gelignite, detonators, electrical and ignition, and the rest of my Sinn Fein conjurer's outfit, and carried it to the window . . ." The men were, of course, the police, and seventeen-year-old Behan. He spent three years as a prisoner in England, primarily in Borstal (reform school), and was then expelled to his homeland, a changed but hardly defeated rebel. Once banned in the Irish Republic, Borstal Boy is both a riveting self-portrait and a clear look into the problems, passions, and heartbreak of Ireland.

When Brendan Behan died in 1964 at the age of 41, he had rung the changes in his short life: bomber, gunman, borstal boy, alcoholic and, finally, international literary figure with the success of The Quare Fellow , The Hostage and Borstal Boy . But Behan drowned his talent in a whiskey bottle and became the caricature of an Irish stage drunk, clowning his way with oaths and stories between bars in Dublin, London, Paris and New York. Written in association with his widow, his mother and others of his family and friends, and old IRA comrades, this is a biography of Brendan Behan.

A comic look at Irish life. The narrator is Finbarr, an orphan raised amid the odor of good whisky and bad cooking. With a mixture of admiration and unease he watches his brother, Manus, turn into a young man of business, successful enough to move to England.