Gébler biography treats bitter father with clear-sighted compassion

Biography; The Projectionist: The Story of Ernest Gébler; By Carlo Gébler; New Island, €24.95

Ernest Gébler and Edna O’Brien: Gébler was intensely jealous of his wife’s superior literary talent

Carlo Gébler never really knew his father. When the tempestuous marriage between novelists Ernest Gébler and Edna O’Brien broke down in the early 1960s, their two sons chose to live with their mother. Ernest was incensed, berating the boys in a letter he never sent as “a pair of unfeeling, soulless zombies . . . phoney ...