Ernest GΘbler was an extraordinary and, in many ways, a visionary man: who else, in the Ireland of the 1950s, refused to eat meat on the grounds that farmers are crazy and irresponsible and money-mad, and fed their animals steroids and antibiotics, let alone believed in the power of mind over asthma, or ate olive oil on toast for breakfast? He was also, however, the father of Carlo - and mistakenly, not to say cruelly, believed his son to be slightly soft in the head. Carlo, of course, was anything but, and in his 10th book - eight of the others are novels - has taken a sledgehammer to his childhood and fashioned a mesmerising memoir from its shattered shards. Is this revenge, or catharsis? Perhaps a bit of both; but it's certainly a cut above the average family saga, and the presence of Carlo's mother, Edna O'Brien - whose books The Country Girls and Girl With Green Eyes Ernest always claimed to have written - adds to the fascination.
