Walking with Ghosts

The very first I saw of this book was something that slightly tainted my expectations. Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon, called it a masterpiece. Well. Before this, my expectations of Gabriel Byrne were limited, to say the least: I’ve only seen him in big-budget Hollywood films and TV-series, where I often found myself thinking he played quite the same character.

In spite of however he looks on screen, let me tell you this: there’s a lot for what McCann has said about this book. It is very, very good, especially in how Byrne speaks of himself, of how he jumps in time, and portrays his childhood. This book is nearly the result of a psychotherapeutical form of writing, albeit very reigned in, either thanks to Byrne, his editor, or both.

I dreamed of first love. A dark-haired girl with pale skin. How I loved Mary Foley in her pink cardigan, smiling. For her I would ride my invisible horse to the doors of Wild West saloons, shoot at Nazi stormtroopers, and score the winning goal for Ireland in the final moment of extra time. Alas, she loved another. Elvis Presley.

I consider that paragraph: it’s brief, sparing with words in a Bukowskian way while telling us a lot: the time is probably the 1950s or 1960s, there’s love, Ireland, national pride, rock ‘n’ roll and youth.

Then a quick jump to the future:

Later, I was seated at the bar of a restaurant on my block. The couple came in and sat across from me. The girl looked at me and whispered something to her boyfriend. He emptied a handful of peanuts into his mouth. —Hey, dude we know you, right? You live in the neighborhood? No, that’s not it, it’s from somewhere else. You look very familiar. —I got it, she said, excited. He was in a movie, right? What was the name of it? This is going to drive me crazy. It is him, isn’t it? I know I’ve seen him before. And I’ve seen you before, I thought. —He’s so familiar, isn’t he? she said to her man. —C’mon dude, tell us. Who are you?

Byrne allows the reader to think. Whenever I read a book and the author—or their editor—has decided that the reader is an intelligent person, I subconsciously sigh of relief and feel a bit more safe. A coddling and demeaning writer quickly loses its reader, and this probably won’t happen to the reader who’s delving into this book.

Byrne’s sense of a child’s acuity tightly had its grip of me:

A smell like rotten eggs came over the walls of the school on the wind. It was from O’Keefe’s yard, where they killed animals to make shoes and rosary beads. They hosed the blood off the walls. You could hear the cows and horses roaring with fear for miles.

He describes what is Catholic/Protestant in Ireland:

—What is the Holy Ghost? she asked another day.

—Sometimes, Sister, one of the boys said, the Holy Ghost comes down on the earth disguised as a pigeon. Like the time when He was telling the Virgin Mary she was going to have a baby, because she didn’t know. The pigeon has a kind face and sits on a windowsill with a halo around his head like in our catechism book. She shouted at him:

—The Holy Ghost is a dove. Not a common dirty pigeon off the street.

The sister told us we were lucky because Ireland is a Catholic country.

The funny moments, of which there are quite a few strewn throughout the book, make sure to be in the same vein as the rest of Byrne’s writing:

The Los Angeles heat had weakened my body. A blanket of smog hung low in the breezeless day. Melting in my room, I called the front desk: —My room is lovely, but I’m roasting. Do you think you could send up a fan? The receptionist assured me she would attend to it immediately. An hour passed before the phone finally rang: —I am sorry but I’m not having any luck. I’ve looked in the dining room and the garden and the pool area. —I mean a fan for cooling the room . . . not, like, a human fan. There was a pause. —I’m sorry, I’m new here.

He tells stories by using very short sentences. It works, especially when regaling about celebrities. His story about Gianni Versace and Leonardo DiCaprio rang especially interesting.

I thought of Gianni bowing that night and then murdered, lying alone in a pool of blood on the steps of his house, having just returned from breakfast at his favorite cafe. His sister Donatella said he died like an emperor. Facing the sky.

Also, meeting Richard Burton seems to have had quite the impact on Byrne.

—Fame, Burton said, doesn’t change who you are, it changes others. It is a sweet poison you drink of first in eager gulps. Then you come to loathe it.

There is a lot of introspection shared throughout the book, much in the same form as Aesop’s Fables: see me, I am flawed. There’s no narcissism hidden in Byrne’s text, nor is there any hiding that his writing unveils him as the human being that he is: nuanced, fragmented, prone to make mistakes, learning from those mistakes, taking steps throughout life, all while being subject to the world around you. As an actor, he has often faced being framed into a world by others. There’s a lot of waiting as an actor. A lot of wills forced upon your choices while you attempt to create art, at your most free.

When Byrne writes about his best friend, the grease monkey, and how he lied to lads about having had sex with her, that’s simply heartbreaking without any shred of sickly-sweet storytelling:

We didn’t speak again. By 1973, I’d heard she was working in the shoe factory, and on my way home from university one day I saw her coming toward me, but she crossed the street to avoid me. I never saw her again after that. Later someone told me she left Ireland, pregnant. I didn’t believe them. —The Lord knows who the father is, could be any dog or divil. —Her own poor father drinking himself into a stupor every night since she went. —Having to carry that cross, God love the poor man. —But wasn’t she let run like a wild animal around the place. I never forgot her. In 2004, I was walking on a footpath among Christmas trees in Brooklyn when I heard Marty Robbins singing “El Paso,” and I saw myself and the grease monkey in a convertible, speeding along the freeway to that faraway place. They say that the songs you love when you’re young will break your heart when you’re old. I stood for a moment and spoke her name aloud, and asked her forgiveness, wherever she was.

Byrne’s language is both powerful and brief, a combination that is rare to me.

His paragraphs on alcohol and drug addiction is a plain story, and he doesn’t attempt to play it any other way.

In short, this book is written in a very non-flamboyant manner. Byrne has steeped in fame and fortune and shed it, too. This is a book written by an individual who is leaving something behind that is a testament of what lies in all humans: the good, and the bad, without the lacquer sheen that Hollywood can provide while at its worst.

I enjoy anecdotes like this one:

The truth is, I don’t know what acting is. Many actors have told me the same thing. Where it comes from, why it comes to one and not another.

I’ve always remembered the story I was told once by an old actor who had been in countless productions. He said it had been a wondrous night. He had been transported to another place beyond the stage, beyond the theater itself. He had performed the role so many times but that night was unlike any other. His dresser came to the wings, the other actors stared at him, understanding something marvelous was taking place. They gazed in awe, knowing they would never see the like of this again.

When he lifted himself from the floor at the play’s end, covered in sweat and tears, to face the audience, they rose instantly as one. There were ten curtain calls that night before he stormed off the stage, pushing past his applauding fellow actors and stage crew to his dressing room. He slammed the door behind him. They could hear him shouting fuck fuck fuck, over and over. Finally the dresser tapped lightly on his door and the actor shouted for him to come in. The actor was staring into the mirror.

—If I may be permitted to say, sir, I have never seen anything like what you did on that stage tonight. It was transcendent.

—I know, I know, said the actor.

—Then why are you so angry, sir?

—Because I have no fucking idea how I did it, he replied, his head in his hands.

This is, in my eyes, not a masterpiece, but a deeply human autobiography that travels a long, long way, enough to make a memorable dent in the annals of autobiographies.

The very first I saw of this book was something that slightly tainted my expectations. Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon, called it a masterpiece. Well. Before this, my expectations of Gabriel Byrne were limited, to say the least: I’ve only seen him in big-budget Hollywood films and TV-series, where I often found myself thinking he played quite the same character.returnreturnIn spite of however he looks on screen, let me tell you this: there’s a lot for what McCann has said about this book. It is very, very good, especially in how Byrne speaks of himself, of how he jumps in time, and portrays his childhood. This book is nearly the result of a psychotherapeutical form of writing, albeit very reigned in, either thanks to Byrne, his editor, or both.returnreturnI dreamed of first love. A dark-haired girl with pale skin. How I loved Mary Foley in her pink cardigan, smiling. For her I would ride my invisible horse to the doors of Wild West saloons, shoot at Nazi stormtroopers, and score the winning goal for Ireland in the final moment of extra time. Alas, she loved another. Elvis Presley.returnreturnI consider that paragraph: it’s brief, sparing with words in a Bukowskian way while telling us a lot: the time is probably the 1950s or 1960s, there’s love, Ireland, national pride, rock ‘n’ roll and youth.returnreturnThen a quick jump to the future:returnreturnLater, I was seated at the bar of a restaurant on my block. The couple came in and sat across from me. The girl looked at me and whispered something to her boyfriend. He emptied a handful of peanuts into his mouth. —Hey, dude we know you, right? You live in the neighborhood? No, that’s not it, it’s from somewhere else. You look very familiar. —I got it, she said, excited. He was in a movie, right? What was the name of it? This is going to drive me crazy. It is him, isn’t it? I know I’ve seen him before. And I’ve seen you before, I thought. —He’s so familiar, isn’t he? she said to her man. —C’mon dude, tell us. Who are you?returnreturnByrne allows the reader to think. Whenever I read a book and the author—or their editor—has decided that the reader is an intelligent person, I subconsciously sigh of relief and feel a bit more safe. A coddling and demeaning writer quickly loses its reader, and this probably won’t happen to the reader who’s delving into this book.returnreturnByrne’s sense of a child’s acuity tightly had its grip of me:returnreturnA smell like rotten eggs came over the walls of the school on the wind. It was from O’Keefe’s yard, where they killed animals to make shoes and rosary beads. They hosed the blood off the walls. You could hear the cows and horses roaring with fear for miles.returnreturnHe describes what is Catholic/Protestant in Ireland:returnreturn—What is the Holy Ghost? she asked another day.returnreturn—Sometimes, Sister, one of the boys said, the Holy Ghost comes down on the earth disguised as a pigeon. Like the time when He was telling the Virgin Mary she was going to have a baby, because she didn’t know. The pigeon has a kind face and sits on a windowsill with a halo around his head like in our catechism book. She shouted at him:returnreturn—The Holy Ghost is a dove. Not a common dirty pigeon off the street.returnreturnThe sister told us we were lucky because Ireland is a Catholic country.returnreturnThe funny moments, of which there are quite a few strewn throughout the book, make sure to be in the same vein as the rest of Byrne’s writing:returnreturnThe Los Angeles heat had weakened my body. A blanket of smog hung low in the breezeless day. Melting in my room, I called the front desk: —My room is lovely, but I’m roasting. Do you think you could send up a fan? The receptionist assured me she would attend to it immediately. An hour passed before the phone finally rang: —I am sorry but I’m not having any luck. I’ve looked in the dining room and the garden and the pool area. —I mean a fan for cooling the room . . . not, like, a human fan. There was a pause. —I’m sorry, I’m new here.returnreturnHe tells stories by using very short sentences. It works, especially when regaling about celebrities. His story about Gianni Versace and Leonardo DiCaprio rang especially interesting.returnreturnI thought of Gianni bowing that night and then murdered, lying alone in a pool of blood on the steps of his house, having just returned from breakfast at his favorite cafe. His sister Donatella said he died like an emperor. Facing the sky.returnreturnAlso, meeting Richard Burton seems to have had quite the impact on Byrne.returnreturn—Fame, Burton said, doesn’t change who you are, it changes others. It is a sweet poison you drink of first in eager gulps. Then you come to loathe it.returnreturnThere is a lot of introspection shared throughout the book, much in the same form as Aesop’s Fables: see me, I am flawed. There’s no narcissism hidden in Byrne’s text, nor is there any hiding that his writing unveils him as the human being that he is: nuanced, fragmented, prone to make mistakes, learning from those mistakes, taking steps throughout life, all while being subject to the world around you. As an actor, he has often faced being framed into a world by others. There’s a lot of waiting as an actor. A lot of wills forced upon your choices while you attempt to create art, at your most free.returnreturnWhen Byrne writes about his best friend, the grease monkey, and how he lied to lads about having had sex with her, that’s simply heartbreaking without any shred of sickly-sweet storytelling:returnreturnWe didn’t speak again. By 1973, I’d heard she was working in the shoe factory, and on my way home from university one day I saw her coming toward me, but she crossed the street to avoid me. I never saw her again after that. Later someone told me she left Ireland, pregnant. I didn’t believe them. —The Lord knows who the father is, could be any dog or divil. —Her own poor father drinking himself into a stupor every night since she went. —Having to carry that cross, God love the poor man. —But wasn’t she let run like a wild animal around the place. I never forgot her. In 2004, I was walking on a footpath among Christmas trees in Brooklyn when I heard Marty Robbins singing “El Paso,” and I saw myself and the grease monkey in a convertible, speeding along the freeway to that faraway place. They say that the songs you love when you’re young will break your heart when you’re old. I stood for a moment and spoke her name aloud, and asked her forgiveness, wherever she was.returnreturnByrne’s language is both powerful and brief, a combination that is rare to me.returnreturnHis paragraphs on alcohol and drug addiction is a plain story, and he doesn’t attempt to play it any other way.returnreturnIn short, this book is written in a very non-flamboyant manner. Byrne has steeped in fame and fortune and shed it, too. This is a book written by an individual who is leaving something behind that is a testament of what lies in all humans: the good, and the bad, without the lacquer sheen that Hollywood can provide while at its worst.returnreturnI enjoy anecdotes like this one:returnreturnThe truth is, I don’t know what acting is. Many actors have told me the same thing. Where it comes from, why it comes to one and not another.returnreturnI’ve always remembered the story I was told once by an old actor who had been in countless productions. He said it had been a wondrous night. He had been transported to another place beyond the stage, beyond the theater itself. He had performed the role so many times but that night was unlike any other. His dresser came to the wings, the other actors stared at him, understanding something marvelous was taking place. They gazed in awe, knowing they would never see the like of this again.returnreturnWhen he lifted himself from the floor at the play’s end, covered in sweat and tears, to face the audience, they rose instantly as one. There were ten curtain calls that night before he stormed off the stage, pushing past his applauding fellow actors and stage crew to his dressing room. He slammed the door behind him. They could hear him shouting fuck fuck fuck, over and over. Finally the dresser tapped lightly on his door and the actor shouted for him to come in. The actor was staring into the mirror.returnreturn—If I may be permitted to say, sir, I have never seen anything like what you did on that stage tonight. It was transcendent.returnreturn—I know, I know, said the actor.returnreturn—Then why are you so angry, sir?returnreturn—Because I have no fucking idea how I did it, he replied, his head in his hands.returnreturnThis is, in my eyes, not a masterpiece, but a deeply human autobiography that travels a long, long way, enough to make a memorable dent in the annals of autobiographies.