O'SULLIVAN, Michael 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born 1957.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Dublin, Ireland. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Blackwater Press, Unit 8, Broomhill Business Park, Broomhill Rd., Tallaght, Dublin 24, Ireland.

CAREER:

Has worked as a broadcaster and for Magill Magazine, Dublin, Ireland, as a literary editor.

WRITINGS:

Mary Robinson: The Life and Times of an Irish Liberal, Blackwater Press (Dublin, Ireland), 1993.

Seán Lemass: A Biography, Blackwater Press (Dublin, Ireland) 1994.

Brendan Behan: A Life, Blackwater Press (Dublin, Ireland), 1997, published as Brendan Behan, Roberts Rinehart (Boulder, CO), 1999.

(With Bernardine O'Neill) The Shelbourne and Its People, Blackwater Press (Dublin, Ireland), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS:

In his biography Brendan Behan: A Life, author Michael O'Sullivan relies on a wide range of sources, including newly available Irish government archives of lost prison letters, to tell the story of Irish author Behan's tumultuous and short life. Behan, who is best known for his play The Quare Fellow and the autobiographical novel Borstal Boy, embraced the Irish Republican Army (IRA) when he was still a youth and ended up in prison for attempting to shoot two policemen. He first gained notice as a journalist, and by the time he was in his early thirties he had become a famous playwright and novelist. Behan was a heavy drinker who emotionally and physically abused his wife and fathered a son by another woman. O'Sullivan also confirms the rumors that Behan was bisexual. In many circles, Behan became more famous for his outlandish behavior than for his writing. As noted by Jack Helbig in Booklist, "Behan was a mass of contradictions" and a man who made both great friends and dire enemies with equal ease. In the end, Behan's drunken behavior was so disturbing that it led to his eventual banning from many of his favorite Irish pubs. A diabetic, Behan died in Ireland at the age of forty-one.

In his Booklist review of Brendan Behan, Helbig noted that O'Sullivan is "a graceful, forceful writer." Writing about Behan in the Irish Times, Behan acquaintance Brian Fallon commented that as a biographer O'Sullivan "appears to have done his homework well." Choice contributor W. E. Hall noted that O'Sullivan offered "many contemporary anecdotes" but that, in the end, the stories "grow tiresome" because of their similarities. Publishers Weekly contributors Jonathan Bing, Charlotte Abbott, and Jeff Zaleski noted that O'Sullivan "has done a wonderful job of tying together the strings of Behan's short, tumultuous life." The reviewers also said that "O'Sullivan superbly captures the spirit of postwar Dublin bohemia." Noting that O'Sullivan "considers Behan in all his contradictions," Library Journal contributor Robert Kelly called Brendan Behan "a disturbing and enlightening biography."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 1999, Jack Helbig, review of Brendan Behan: A Life, p. 1662.

Choice, November, 1999, W. E. Hall, review of Brendan Behan, p. 539.

Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland), July 5, 1997, Louise East, "Da Do Ron Ron Ron"; November 22, 1997, "A Quare Fellow Indeed, Brendan Behan's Colorful and Short Life Has Spawned Many Myths, but the Seeds of His Destruction Lay in His Success, Writes Brian Fallon," p. 62.

Library Journal, May 1, 1999, Robert Kelly, review of Brendan Behan, pp. 78, 80.

Publishers Weekly, May 3, 1999, Jonathan Bing, Charlotte Abbott, and Jeff Zaleski, review of Brendan Behan, pp. 62-63.*