Publisher's Synopsis
"O'Brien's bravura performance [is] seductive in its intellectual sweep and literary assurance."-Toby Barnard, Times Literary Supplement
"Has the magical insistence which Conor Cruise O'Brien can produce at his best. . . . Where he looks back to his own childhood the book shines. He writes of his mother and father with effortless grace and candor, with a marvelous, elegant mix of affection and detachment."-Observer