Father & I

Carlo Gebler's childhood was one of prohibitions: no sweets, no comics, no toys, no friends to the house to play; a childhood dominated by his father Ernest Gebler's belief in discipline and Joseph Stalin. Ernest Gebler was a writer whose novel The Plymouth Adventure was made into a film starring Spencer Tracy. But when Carlo Gebler's mother--Edna O'Brien--eclipsed her husband's literary success, Ernest Gebler convinced himself that he was the writer of her books, a strain which broke the family up. After years of silence, Carlo finally discovered both the truth about his father and feelings which he had not known himself capable of. "You cannot change the past, but with understanding you can sometimes draw the poison out of it."

Born in Dublin in 1954, Carlo Gebler has written nine books, dramatisations for theatre, and radio.