Walking With Ghosts
- Author Gabriel Byrne
- Narrator Gabriel Byrne
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Run Time 6 hours and 57 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Autobiography: arts and entertainment, Biography and non-fiction prose, Coping with drug and alcohol problems, Family and health, Films, cinema, Individual actors and performers, Memoirs, Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church, The Arts.
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Listen to a sample
What to expect
This audiobook is exquisitely and eloquently read by the author, Gabriel Byrne.
Walking with Ghosts is the stunningly evocative memoir by Irish actor and Hollywood star, Gabriel Byrne.
'Dreamy, lyrical and utterly unvarnished' – Colm Tóibín
As a young boy growing up in the outskirts of Dublin, Gabriel Byrne sought refuge in a world of imagination among the fields and hills near his home, at the edge of a rapidly encroaching city. Born to working-class parents and the eldest of six children, he harboured a childhood desire to become a priest. When he was eleven years old, Byrne found himself crossing the Irish Sea to join a seminary in England. Four years later, Byrne had been expelled and he quickly returned to his native city. There he took odd jobs as a messenger boy and a factory labourer to get by. In his spare time he visited the cinema, where he could be alone and yet part of a crowd. It was here that he could begin to imagine a life beyond the grey world of ’60s Ireland.
He revelled in the theatre and poetry of Dublin’s streets, populated by characters as eccentric and remarkable as any in fiction, those who spin a yarn with acuity and wit. It was a friend who suggested Byrne join an amateur drama group, a decision that would change his life forever and launch him on an extraordinary forty-year career in film and theatre. Moving between sensual recollection of childhood in a now almost vanished Ireland and reflections on stardom in Hollywood and on Broadway, Byrne also courageously recounts his battle with addiction and the ambivalence of fame.
Walking with Ghosts is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking as well as a lyrical homage to the people and landscapes that ultimately shape our destinies.
‘Make no mistake about it: this is a masterpiece . . . poetic, moving and very funny’ – Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin
Critics Review
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The wonder of this memoir is its unembellished truth. It is written by a man whose amazing story is the stuff of literature
Edna O'Brien -
Dreamy, lyrical and utterly unvarnished. [Byrne] writes passionately about first love and hilariously about life as an actor
Irish Times -
Make no mistake about it: this is a masterpiece. A book that will wring out our tired hearts. It is by turns poetic, moving and very funny. You will find it on the shelf alongside other great Irish memoirs including those by Frank McCourt, Nuala O’Faolain and Edna O’Brien
Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin -
The allure of Gabriel Byrne’s memoir is that it persuasively humanizes what it is to be a big deal movie star. Byrne is wonderfully without cant or bluster or phony humility. Instead he leads with felicity, candor, humor and empathy. In the end, he seems to be somebody you’d be glad to know
Richard Ford -
A wry and warm, swirling poetic reverie of a memoir
Colin Barrett -
A joy of a book – full of heart and humour, beautifully told
Sinéad Gleeson
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