With a panel on Flann O'Brien's masterpiece, The Third Policeman, reeling drunkenly towards me, I decided that the time had come to finally properly acquaint myself with the life and times with that gentleman scribbler. The definitive Dubliner, hailing as he did from Strabane, his most endearing acheivement, in the eyes of his compatriots, was, apparently, that he squandered the talent of his youth and pretty much killed himself with drink. What I didn;t a[reciate was, that even though the rejection of The Third Policeman discouraged him from further novels for far too long, his work ethic was pretty extraordinary, but any sort of breakthrough popular international success eluded him, though At Swim-Two-Birds was just beginning to receive the sort of acclaim and sales that might have lead to a different career had it come sooner. Cronin is an affectionate and merciful biographer, not hiding his many faults but treating them with gentleness and sympathy. It's a brilliant evocation of Ireland in first two-thrids of the twentieth century, the same milieu that produced exiles Joyce and Beckett, but it was Miles who stayed, diligently providing daily entertainments in his newspaper column for the people of Dublin in much the same way he provided support for his large family when his father died, a wholly different sort of artistic life and outlook.

A superb book about a fascinating character.