Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art

Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know

By: Colm Toibin
Narrated by: Colm Toibin
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $14.99

Buy for $14.99

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

From Colm Tóibín, the formidable award-winning author of The Master and Brooklyn, an illuminating, intimate study of Irish culture, history, and literature told through the lives and work of three men - William Wilde, John Butler Yeats, and John Stanislaus Joyce - and the complicated, influential relationships they had with their complicated sons.

Colm Tóibín begins his incisive, revelatory Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know with a walk through the Dublin streets where he went to university - a wide-eyed boy from the country - and where three Irish literary giants also came of age. Oscar Wilde, writing about his relationship with his father, William Wilde, stated: “Whenever there is hatred between two people there is bond or brotherhood of some kind...you loathed each other not because you were so different but because you were so alike.” W.B. Yeats wrote of his father, John Butler Yeats, a painter: “It is this infirmity of will which has prevented him from finishing his pictures. The qualities I think necessary to success in art or life seemed to him egotism.” John Stanislaus Joyce, James’ father, was perhaps the most quintessentially Irish, widely loved, garrulous, a singer, and a drinker with a volatile temper, who drove his son from Ireland.

Elegant, profound, and riveting, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers, but also illustrates the surprising ways these men surface in their work. Through these stories of fathers and sons, Tóibín recounts the resistance to English cultural domination, the birth of modern Irish cultural identity, and the extraordinary contributions of these complex and masterful authors.

©2018 Colm Toibin (P)2018 Simon & Schuster
Art & Literature Authors Classics Cultural & Regional Essays European World Literature Nonfiction United Kingdom

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Magician Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
The Magician By: Colm Toibin
A Guest at the Feast Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
A Guest at the Feast By: Colm Toibin
The Testament of Mary Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
The Testament of Mary By: Colm Toibin
The Master Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
The Master By: Colm Toibin
The Heather Blazing Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
The Heather Blazing By: Colm Toibin
Nora Webster: A Novel Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
Nora Webster: A Novel By: Colm Toibin
The Shortest Day Audiobook By Colm Tóibín cover art
The Shortest Day By: Colm Tóibín
House of Names Audiobook By Colm Tóibín cover art
House of Names By: Colm Tóibín
Emperor of Rome Audiobook By Mary Beard cover art
Emperor of Rome By: Mary Beard
Doppelganger Audiobook By Naomi Klein cover art
Doppelganger By: Naomi Klein
The Magic Mountain Audiobook By Thomas Mann cover art
The Magic Mountain By: Thomas Mann
Lessons Audiobook By Ian McEwan cover art
Lessons By: Ian McEwan
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain Audiobook By George Saunders cover art
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain By: George Saunders
We Don't Know Ourselves Audiobook By Fintan O'Toole cover art
We Don't Know Ourselves By: Fintan O'Toole
The Club Audiobook By Leo Damrosch cover art
The Club By: Leo Damrosch
Rough Sleepers Audiobook By Tracy Kidder cover art
Rough Sleepers By: Tracy Kidder
Fifty-Two Stories Audiobook By Anton Chekhov, Richard Pevear - translator, Larissa Volokhonsky - translator cover art
Fifty-Two Stories By: Anton Chekhov, and others
Shrines of Gaiety Audiobook By Kate Atkinson cover art
Shrines of Gaiety By: Kate Atkinson
De Profundis Audiobook By Oscar Wilde, Merlin Holland - introduction cover art
De Profundis By: Oscar Wilde, and others
Humanly Possible Audiobook By Sarah Bakewell cover art
Humanly Possible By: Sarah Bakewell

People who viewed this also viewed...

The Shortest Day Audiobook By Colm Tóibín cover art
The Shortest Day By: Colm Tóibín
The South Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
The South By: Colm Toibin
The Heather Blazing Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
The Heather Blazing By: Colm Toibin
On Elizabeth Bishop Audiobook By Colm Tóibín cover art
On Elizabeth Bishop By: Colm Tóibín
Nora Webster: A Novel Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
Nora Webster: A Novel By: Colm Toibin
The Testament of Mary Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
The Testament of Mary By: Colm Toibin
The Master Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
The Master By: Colm Toibin
House of Names Audiobook By Colm Tóibín cover art
House of Names By: Colm Tóibín
The Magician Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
The Magician By: Colm Toibin
New Ways to Kill Your Mother Audiobook By Colm Toibin cover art
New Ways to Kill Your Mother By: Colm Toibin
The Pilgrimage Audiobook By John Broderick, Colm Toibin - foreword cover art
The Pilgrimage By: John Broderick, and others
Twist Audiobook By Colum McCann cover art
Twist By: Colum McCann
Most relevant  
I entered this book without prejudice and I ended it with something rich, rewarding. I have the highest regard for this author as well as for his subject.

Beyond expectations

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This is an excellent book, and the author’s narration makes it even better. The first chapter is a brilliant tour through Dublin. All three authors’ fathers are interesting, but if you are into Ulysses or James Joyce, this is a wonderful book to have.

Mad, bad, dangerous to know.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Beautiful, compelling, and glowing throughout with the brilliance and humanity of the author and his subjects. I will reread (i.e., re-listen to) this book and also return to the works of Wilde, Yeats, and, particularly, Joyce, whose father—I now know—lives and breathes in the pages of his novels.

Eminently re-readable

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Why did the author go from a quiet whisper almost as if out of breath to full volume. The sound engineer really earned his pay on this one.

I wish there had been more depth in each of the portraits and comparisons and contrasts, which were excellent. What the author presented was marvelous and insightful, though. Recommended.

Breathless

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

To create a biographical portrait of three of Ireland’s greatest writers by sketching the lives of their Fathers. And not by focusing on the Father-Son relationships necessarily, but by honing in on the Fathers’ features and flaws and letting their effects rain down on their progeny.

I chose this book for Toibin’s words and voice and not because I knew the works of the Sons all that well. I came away with a better understanding of what the whys and wherefores of Wilde, Yeats, and Joyce arose from. I think Toibin has accomplished what he set out to do. Four Stars. ****

Such an interesting mission.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This author simply did not use his prodigious character insights as previously revealed in, for example, Testament of Mary. I was hoping for a strong understanding of the character of the three fathers, and instead got a rather awestruck presentation of how their awfulness (and they were, indeed, awful) influenced their sons' works. The book thus is more literary analysis than character analysis, and I was looking for the latter. These three fathers got very gentle treatment from Toibin. I gave the performance three stars only because I enjoy listening to his voice, but I would not recommend this book, except to someone who is looking for the aforesaid literary analysis.

I am mad, sad, and disappointed in this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.