Out After Dark (Methuen Biography)

Hugh Leonard's second volume of autobiography is a rich portrait of adolescence in Dublin in the 40s and 50s: schooldays and altar-boyhood, early bliss in the seven pennies at the Astoria, problems with Gloria and Dolores. Leonard stirs in theater anecdotes, vignettes of Patrick Kavanagh and Brenda Behan, and divulges his own beginnings as a writer. The result is a witty and entertaining analysis of Dublin and Dubliners by one of Ireland's finest playwrights.