A Runner Among Falling Leaves: A Story of Childhood

By Ciaran O'Driscoll

In this memoir of his childhood, O'Driscoll eloquently examines his troubled relationship with his father, whose bullying and mental abuse have affected him profoundly throughout his life. The task the author has undertaken is to give voice to the voiceless: to express the unnerving pent-up emotions he was unable to express as a child. In A Runner among Falling Leaves, O'Driscoll has written a book that is lyrical, affecting, and at times darkly comical.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0853239479
• ISBN13: 9780853239475
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

An unhappy childhood transcended

Ciaran O'Driscoll's "A Runner Among Falling Leaves" took my breath away. I suppose it was because I would have liked to write a similar book, but it would have taken so much bravery, not to mention the literary and lyrical flair which this author has in abundance. It is not easy to write a book about an unhappy childhood, dominated by a disgruntled father, in such a way that the reader is not put off, but is eager to see it through to the end. Whatever magical skills O'Driscoll possesses, this is precisely what he does. You do not come away from the book feeling sad or depressed, instead you have an abiding sense of a shared humanity. I think it has someting to do with the fact that the author is a poet, and can transform the sad details into something transcendent. This account of an Irish childhood is unforgettable, all the more so in that it is not only sad but funny, and at times I could not help but burst out laughing at how a miserable and constricted childhood was shown from a comic angle. Sadness there is too, but not a heavy burden. The ending is magnificent, I think, in its subtle shift to a new generation: the author listening to the happy banter of his own son.