Fear and Loathing in Dublin - Tapa blanda

There's no doubt that his candidly described struggles with drink, sexuality and other demons lend the narrative a depth...The book, though, has yet another and even more telling subject and that's his relationship with his widowed father, whose North Circular Road house he shared and who emerges gradually throughout these pages as a figure of grace, dignity and integrity. The author's loving depiction of this decent, concerned man, sometimes exasperated by his errant son but always tolerant of him, is what makes the memoir memorable. --The Irish Independent

This is a funny, sad, and frankly scary tale of redemption. --Alan Corr - RTÉ Guide

Everything about this book is good. --Books Ireland

[Madden's] memoir is a story of transformation that brings an era in Dublin back to life andconfronts the demons that brought low a generation of gay men --Gcn

Anguished tale of jaundiced subs and gay pubs.

Aodhan Madden s difficult odyssey is a testament to the devastating effects of a conservative and repressive culture...Madden's biography is compelling.--Joanne Savage Culture Northern Ireland- --Emmanuel Kehoe - Sunday Business Post

...is as compelling as anything Hunter S. ever wrote...As a work of entertainment, it's a winner. As a record of the experience of 'coming out'; in Catholic Ireland 30 years ago and the prejudice the Gay community had to deal with, it's superb. As a depiction of one man's descent into the depths of alcohol addiction and psychosis it's riveting. --Catherine McGrotty - Verbal

Anguished tale of jaundiced subs and gay pubs.

Aodhan Madden s difficult odyssey is a testament to the devastating effects of a conservative and repressive culture...Madden's biography is compelling.--Joanne Savage Culture Northern Ireland- --Emmanuel Kehoe - Sunday Business Post

Reminiscent at times of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Madden's story is laced with the acerbic wit of the Dublin meeja. It's a dark and at times disturbing memoir about intolerance, isolation, alcohol and self-loathing, but ultimately too it's about redemption and how the love and sacrifice of an aging father saved the life of a talented young writer seemingly on the road to self-destruction. --Fermanagh Herald

I was very taken with Aodhan Madden's Fear and Loathing in Dublin for its highly-charged depiction of a young man struggling with the twin demons of alcohol and a confused sexuality before literature saves him from himself. Most moving of all is the manner in which he writes about his father, a simple country man trying to cope with widowhood as his world falls apart and his son looks to be on a collision course with disaster. --Aubrey Malone, The Irish Catholic Books of 2009

This darkly funny memoir spares nothing, especially himself --Cahir O'Doherty, Irish Voice

Anguished tale of jaundiced subs and gay pubs.

Aodhan Madden s difficult odyssey is a testament to the devastating effects of a conservative and repressive culture...Madden's biography is compelling.--Joanne Savage Culture Northern Ireland- --Emmanuel Kehoe - Sunday Business Post

A moving memoir from Irish playwright Aodhan Madden, tracing his life from an alcoholic journalist battling his sexuality in 1970's Dublin through to his attempts at recovery and advancing his writing career. Unforgiving and honest, Fear and Loathing in Dublin is a deft infusion of humor and madness, chronicling the shades of darkness and light within Aodhan Madden's colorful life. One of the few people to have ever attempted escape into a mental institution, Madden sought a means of recovery in everything from the bottle to therapy. The people Madden encountered in the many pubs he frequented and, like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, those in Dean Swift's hospital are all portrayed as an amusing cast of characters (including a drag queen and a murderer) with heartbreaking frailties, depth and resilience. Tales of debauchery from Ireland's leading newspaper journalists forge a link between writing and drinking. Madden's dependence on alcohol was compounded by the loss of his mother and, whilst also confronting his sexuality and the ignorance of others towards "filthy queers", he suffered from severe paranoid delusions, resulting in repeated suicide attempts. Madden's quest for sobriety is finally aided by his emerging career as a playwright and the success of his first play, The Midnight Door. This is a cathartic tale of recovery despite personal demons, of salvation found in the love of the written word, and of a loving father who stood by a troubled son. It's also a mark of how far we've come towards understanding madness and fostering a more inclusive, humane society and, of course, of how far we have yet to go.