HBO may have pulled the plug on “In Treatment,” but Gabriel Byrne — its star shrink — is only too happy to analyze the Irish love affair with words. “I suppose it has something to do with our history,” says the 61-year-old actor and producer. “The one thing that can’t be proscribed or repressed is imagination.”
Byrne lives in Brooklyn now, but his heart has never left Ireland. He’s not only its Cultural Ambassador, but an eloquent spokesman for the Imagine Ireland festival (imagineireland.ie), sponsoring some 400 events throughout the US this year. He says he was lucky to have grown up in rural Ireland, where he saw “the last of the great storytellers — men who went from house to house telling stories. The world they created took people out of their everyday existence . . . Imagination was the TV of its time, and our only way of expressing truly who we are.” Here’s what’s in his library.
— by Barbara Hoffman
Let the Great World Spin
by Colum McCann
I’m proud to say Colum’s a good friend of mine. He writes very simply, very powerfully, very beautifully. With each novel, you never know what world Colum’s going to enter into. “Dancer” was the reimagining of Russia in the early 20th century; he also wrote about a Romanian gypsy. This novel deals with 9/11 and the world of Philippe Petit, who walked between the World Trade towers.
The Commitments
by Roddy Doyle
Roddy is a schoolteacher — I used to be one myself. This book was the first to put the voice of discontented Irish youth and their connection to music on the page. He also portrays the new Dublin and its connection with America in this story about a band. It’s a very funny, very accessible novel.
Are You Somebody?
The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman
by Nuala O’Faolain
A ruthlessly honest book about what it means to be a member of a dysfunctional family, but it’s really the story about searching for love and acceptance. I met Bill Clinton, and he said he was having trouble writing his memoirs. I said, “Maybe you should have a read of this book.” He wrote down the name. A year later, I got a thank-you note from him.
Brooklyn
by Colm Toibin
Colm lectures at Princeton. He’s also one of our greatest young writers. The story is of a young girl who leaves Ireland to make her way in Brooklyn, falls in love there and is torn between home and away. It’s the dilemma of everyone who’s torn between two places, belonging in neither. It’s a stunningly beautiful, simple love story.