ISBN: 1451668570 9781451668575

Category: Literary Criticism / General

Page count: 352

<b>Novelist and critic Colm Tóibín provides “a fascinating exploration of writers and their families” (<i>Entertainment Weekly</i>) and “an excellent guide through the dark terrain of unconscious desires” (<i>The Evening Standard</i>) in this brilliant collection of essays that explore the relationships of writers to their families and their work.</b><br><br>Colm Tóibín—celebrated both for his award-winning fiction and his provocative book reviews and essays—traces the intriguing, often twisted family ties of writers in the books they leave behind.<br> <br> Through the relationship between W. B. Yeats and his father, Thomas Mann and his children, Jane Austen and her aunts, and Tennessee Williams and his sister, Tóibín examines a world of relations, richly comic or savage in their implications. Acutely perceptive and imbued with rare tenderness and wit, <i>New Ways to Kill Your Mother </i>is a fascinating look at writers’ most influential bonds and a secret key to understanding and enjoying their work.