Aubrey Dillon-Malone

Life
[Aubrey Dillon-Malone; poetry as Aubrey Malone] b. 1953, Ballina, Co. Mayo; moved to Dublin in 1969; taught and worked in journalism; prolific full-time writer; issued The Brothers Behan (1998); The Cynic's Dictionary (1998); Historic Pubs of Dublin (2001); Hemingway (1999); a life of Charles Bukowski as The Hunchback of East Hollywood (2003) and num. other works of biography and compilations of wit and wisdom.

Works
Poetry
  • Flight (1981).
  • Pedagogue and Other Poems (2001).
  • Idle Time (Belfast: Lapwing Publ. 2010), 71pp.
Fiction
  • The Things That Were (Ashfield Press 1998), 256pp.
Memoir
  • Losers (Penniless Publication Press 2020), 184pp.
Biography
  • Criticism and Macbeth: with scene by scene analysis, character studies, essays on themes, questions (1977).
  • The Rise and Fall and Rise of Elvis (Leopold Publishing 1997), 163pp., ill [16 col. photos].
  • with Brian Behan, The Brothers Behan (1998).
  • On the Edge: Psychological Problems of the Famous and Infamous (1999).
  • Hemingway: The Grace and the Pressure (Robson Books 1999), 346pp.
  • The Hunchback of East Hollywood: A Biography of Charles Bukowski (Headpress 2003), 192pp.
  • Leitrim Observed: A Biography of John McGahern (Aureus Publishing 2023), 224pp.
Media
  • Michael Collins [Neil Jordan’s film] (1996).
  • Ryan’s Daughter and Michael Collins (GLI 1997), 56 & 57pp.
  • Talk Nation: The Irish on Everything and Anything (Currach Books 2004), 416pp.
  • Soundbites: A Dictionary of Irish Political Quotations (Leopold Publishing 1997), 127pp.
  • Hollyweird (Michael O’Mara Books 1995), 254pp., 8 photos.
  • I Was a Fugitive from a Hollywood Trivia Factory: A Book of Hollywood Lists (1999).
  • The Mammoth Book of Irish Humour (Little Brown Book Group 2015), 544pp.
Miscellaneous
  • Women on Women: And on Age, Beauty, Love, Men, Marriage (1995).
  • It’s An Awful World Thank God! (Newbridge: Web Publications 1996).
  • A Ripe Old Age: Enjoying the Later Years (Newbridge: Web Publications 1996), 171pp. [publ. with assistance of Independent Group; profits to Alzheimer Society of Ireland].
  • The Guinness Book of Humorous Irish Anecdotes (Guinness Publishing 1996), 224pp.
  • ed. [compiler], The Cynic’s Dictionary (1998, 1999).
  • Stranger Than Fiction: A Book of Literary Lists (Prion Books 1999), 320pp. [poss. identical with the Funny Peculiar, 2001].
  • Funny Peculiar: An Encyclopedia of Eccentric Acts, Bizarre Behaviour and Unusual Facts About the Famous and the Famously StrangeWelbeck Publishing Group 2001), 320pp. [cover-title: A Directory of the Daft and Dotty].  
  • Historic Pubs of Dublin (2001), ill. Trevor Hart [photos].
  • In Bed with the Enemy (2002), ill. by Andy Seldon.
  • Life Through a Keyhole: An Anthology of Wit, ed. by Erwin Brecher PhD (Manning Parnership 2009), 104pp. [quotable notables].

Notes
Losers (2020) - We’re all losers in life in some way,’ Aubrey Malone contends in this memoir, ‘but that’s what makes us interesting.’ It documents his college years in Ballina, County Mayo, where he suffered under an oppressive regime and eventually found closure on it. The book also features a court action taken by his father after he retired from being a solicitor and his own life as a teacher and subsequently a writer. As a background to these themes, his life-long flirtation with snooker is chronicled, both at league level where he played on the “chicken and chips” circuit and in the top flight where he became “a fan with a typewriter,” chronicling the careers of legends like Jimmy White and Ronnie O’Sullivan. Another sub-theme is Gaelic football, the Mayo team mirroring his own one in Muredach’s College. Success proved to be equally elusive here, the Nearly Men of Mayo failing to capture the holy grail of an All-Ireland for seventy years despite giving their all. “I coulda been a contender”, Marlon Brando said famously in On the Waterfront. Paul Newman could have been one too in The Hustler. In sport as in life the three cherries of success seem to constantly run away from those who crave them most. As a result they become beautiful ... losers. (Publisher’s notice at Amazon Books - online [accessed 28.07.2023.]

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