New Ways to Kill Your Mother

In this wonderfully entertaining and enlightening collection, Colm Toibin not only explores the often tense relationship between writers and their families but also conveys, with a rare tenderness and wit, the great joy of reading their work. Here is W.B. Yeats harshly responding to his own father's literary efforts ; Thomas Mann ruining his children's prospects ; Tennessee Williams haunted by his sister's mental illness ; and John Cheever being beastly to his wife.