A biography of Tara Browne, the Irish aristocrat whose extraordinary life inspired the Beatles' greatest song.
Paul Howard is a multi-award-winning journalist, author and comedy writer. He is probably best known in Ireland as the creator of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly, a fictional rugby player whose exploits have been the subject of many books. The Ross O'Carroll-Kelly books have sold close to one million copies. He is a three-time Irish Book Award winner.
Tara Browne was the golden boy around whom, for a short while, the
entire extraordinary world of Sixties London seemed to revolve.
Tara knew everybody and they all loved him, not for his money, as
he feared, but because he, above them all, embodied the spirit of
the age. I absolutely loved this book. It's a brilliant, vivid
portrait of extraordinary times
*Miranda Seymour, author of In My Father's House *
After all these years, we at last know about the real life of the
lucky man who made the grade. I found it fascinating to discover
the true story of Tara Browne, a legend in a lyric.
*Hunter Davies, author of The Beatles: The Authorised
Biography*
I loved it! Howard's skilful evocation of an extraordinary turning
point in cultural history is an absolute joy to read. The life of
Tara Browne offers the perfect conduit into a psychedelic world
populated by a legendary cast of characters that you simply
couldn't make up. While it's clear that Howard undertook years of
rigorous original research, his prose is always gripping and never
laboured. The deep but slightly exasperated affection Howard feels
for Browne injects pathos into this highly entertaining account of
an extraordinary, chaotic, high-octane life
*Eleanor Fitzsimons, author of Wilde’s Women: How Oscar Wilde
Was Shaped by the Women He Knew *
Tara Browne held the rare quality of romance. A figure of intense
but passive glamour, he stood at the epicentre of the bohemian
Anglo-Irish aristocracy and 1960s London at its most swinging, yet
somehow gave the air of merely passing through life. In a
wonderfully readable book, gleaming with detail, Paul Howard evokes
the splendid vanished worlds that Browne inhabited and - no easy
thing to do - makes us believe in his elusive, imperishable
enchantment
*Laura Thompson, author of Take Six Girls: The Lives of the
Mitford Sisters*
I read - no, devoured - I Read the News Today, Oh Boy. It's an
absolute gem. Great humour is balanced with the sadness, and the
writing is so deft with all that research woven so lightly into the
mix. I can only imagine how much labour is involved in making it
all flow so effortlessly
*John Butler, writer and director of The Stag*
This is a wonderful book about the Swinging Sixties; it opens a
door into an extraordinary world that we all clung to long ago, and
dreamed of remotely, at the other end of our tiny transistor
radios. Back then we only knew the sound track. But this is the
real thing. Man
*Michael Harding, author of Staring at Lakes: A Memoir of Love,
Melancholy and Magical Thinking*
A vivid and immaculately researched account of a remarkable life. A
fascinating journey through post-war Irish and English society, in
the company of a cast of extraordinary characters.
*Antony Edmonds, author of Oscar Wilde's Scandalous
Summer*
I was fascinated to read this beautifully written book, which
gripped me on many different levels. Vividly telling the
extraordinary story of Tara Browne, a mythical figure through the
Beatles' song, showing how extremes of love with no rules combined
with limitless funds, is as disastrous as it is glamorous. Paul
Howard documents in detail through his exacting conversations with
many of the people in Tara's life, the post war/pre 60s British
aristocratic attitudes - illuminating a life that seems more like
centuries ago, than decades. Having been to Luggala as a child, and
remembering my meeting with Oonagh, Paul brought her to life for
me, told me much I had absolutely no idea about, showing both her
brilliance and originality - and also the tragic outcome of many of
her choices. It is a compelling read and a story that is only
possible to believe because it is actually true. I can only hope
that Julian and Dorian live more peaceful, if less exciting
lives.
*Julia Samuel, founder of Child Bereavement UK and author of
Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and Surviving *
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