[Hugh Leonard] is author of the very successful Broadway play, "Da," and indeed all the characters, much of the action, and many of the best lines of the play are also presented in Home Before Night. It doesn't matter; they are adaptable to either literary form. But in the play they are bathed in the softening light of affectionate reminiscence. In the memoirs they are stark, etched in acid. The playgoer who was charmed by "Da" should be warned that reading Home Before Night will be a very different experience. The book is comedy, but savage comedy … true enough, perhaps, but too bitter to be entertaining. (p. 126)

All of which is not to belittle the vivid narrative, the keen observation and sharp delineation of character, the extraordinary facility and wit with which the Irishman uses his adopted (or imposed) language, English. If only the net result were not...