A fierce, mordantly funny and perceptive book, from the author of Ship of Fools, about the act of national self-harm known as Brexit. A great democratic country tears itself apart, and indulges in the dangerous pleasures of national masochism.
Fintan O'Toole is a historian, biographer, literary critic and political commentator. His acclaimed columns on Brexit for the Irish Times, the Guardian and the New York Review of Books have been awarded both the Orwell Prize and the European Press Prize. His books include A Traitor's Kiss, his life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Judging Shaw and White Savage. His investigative, polemical books have all been bestsellers: Meanwhile Back at the Ranch, Ship of Fools and Enough is Enough. He is writing the authorised biography of Seamus Heaney and, for Head of Zeus, a history of Ireland in his own time.
[O'Toole] is a sharp thinker and he makes many good points... There
is also a lot to learn from his incidental arguments. This is a
literary book and I was delighted'
*The Times*
The psychopathology of Brexit is at the heart of Fintan O'Toole's
compact counterblast
*Times Educational Supplement*
A witty attack on the fantasies that drove Brexit... Clever, over
the top, but entertaining political writing'
*The Times, Books of the Year*
Fintan O'Toole's searing polemic [is] expertly researched and full
of unexpectedly funny vignettes
*Sunday Business Post, Books of the Year*
What gives this book its distinction is the fact that [O'Toole] is
as adept at analysing character (as revealed by language) as he is
at marshalling statistics... O'Toole uncovers and dissects it with
the deliberate, affectless skill of a virtuoso surgeon. The result,
for me, is a wildly entertaining but uncomfortable read. In short,
he has nailed us to the floor with a nine-inch nail. It's certainly
not easy bein' English these days, and O'Toole, with this
pitilessly brilliant book, has just made it at least fifty shades
harder'
*Jonathan Coe, Irish Times*
[The Euro] is what British conservative thought has feared since
the 1970s. Readers interested in exploring these fears, and pretty
much everyone else, should read [this]
*Sunday Business Post*
O'Toole offers a central, sexual metaphor for the fall, in which
England alternately dominates and submits
*Guardian*
Britain's psychodrama, as Fintan O'Toole reminds us in his
brilliant book, is almost entirely about its reaction to winning
World War II, but losing its empire
*Sunday Business Post*
O'Toole has been one of the most astute commentators on Brexit, and
here he offers his analysis on the forces in the English psyche
that brought it about. Nor does he pull any punches... He writes to
devastating effect, his framing of Brexit as a "weird psychodrama"
raising some uncomfortable questions'
*Herald.*
Fintan O'Toole [...] displays an amazing command of the facts, but
what distinguishes his book is the quality of the mind at work, the
sharpness of the analysis, the style. O'Toole even makes you feel
sorry for the Brexit leaders and that is no small achievement
*Colm Tóibín, Irish Independent, Books of the Year*
Excellent... Heroic Failure has many lessons about political
backstabbing'
*Martina Fitzgerald, Dublin Sunday Business Post, Books of the
Year*
O'Toole is never knowingly understated, and these essays are best
enjoyed as intellectual comfort food for anyone who agrees that
Brexit has no redeeming features whatsoever. Stylishly presented...
They are the work of a skilled debater'
*Dublin Sunday Business Post*
A quite brilliant dissection of the cultural roots of the Brexit
narrative. It is a love letter to the best of Britain and a
demolition of the fantasies of the worst
*David Miliband*
Of all the wonderful things I devoured over the Xmas break, I
enjoyed this the most. Best book about the English that I've read
for ages, it explains how their post-imperial neurosis led to
Brexit
*Billy Bragg*
A brilliant exploration of the Brexit psyche and, as one would
expect, it is written beautifully as well
*Belfast Telegraph*
The most entertaining book about Brexit – and in times this dark we
must give thanks for the laughter it occasions
*Tablet*
The argument is brilliantly made in Fintan O'Toole's very funny
Heroic Failure'
*Kevin O'Rourke, Guardian*
O'Toole shows, sometimes in provocative fashion, how anxieties
about British decline spawned a topsy-turvy story
*Financial Times*
Full of acute cultural observation and includes a hilarious
take-down of Boris Johnson
*New Statesman*
[Heroic Failure's] arguments are well made. O'Toole is very good at
analysing the "camp" style of Brexiteers such as Boris Johnson, who
wave serious economic objections away with "references to Dunkirk
or the Blitz", while presenting "bans" on bendy bananas as vital
"tests of national freedom"
*The Week*
A clear-eyed, devastating account of the delusions of Brexit – and
the self-delusions of its architects
*Observer*
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