cover image Out After Dark

Out After Dark

Hugh Leonard. Andrea Deutsch, $24.95 (198pp) ISBN 978-0-233-98474-2

In this continuation of the delightful memoir that began with Home Before Night , a popular playwright/author recalls the conflicting emotions of his coming-of-age in an Irish household. Leonard takes us back to the '30s and '40s, to the small town of Dalkey, a suburb of Dublin where he still lives. We observe the constricted, yet not unhappy life of his parents, who did not shield him from the fact of his adoption. His early tiffs with censorious priests, a barely endured civil service job, hilarious efforts to be rid of virginity and his unquenchable desire to break out as a writer provide station stops on his journey. Leonard sharply limns the provincial Irish character who would later show up in his play Da , and brings to life some of the eccentric greats who made Dublin a theater mecca. This is an entertaining look at an Irish youth waiting in the wings for the main action to begin. (Aug.)