Christy Brown belonged to that era of Dublin life when the plain prose of writers' lives was inevitably woven into legend. In Christy Brown's case raw material was ready to hand - a strong mother for whom Christy was one of 22 pregnancies, his writing and painting with his left foot, and strong drinking leading occasionally to outrageous behaviour.
Then there were Christy's own versions of his life, first a sentimental self-portrait in My Left Foot (later abjured by Christy), followed by a thinly-disguised warts-and-all depiction of his family in Down All the Days. And then came Jim Sheridan and Hollywood to project a moving allegory of his life to a world-wide audience in the Oscar-winning film. But that, too, added to the legend.
Anthony Jordan, author and former principal of the Cerebral Palsy Ireland School in Sandymount, acquired a large collection of Christy's letters several years after his death in 1981, and has used them to fashion a modest biography which tries to lift the veil on the legend.
In giving his book the decidedly non-PC title, Christy Brown's omen, Jordan is in danger of circulating a new legend. Approaching the book with a certain trepidation, I was despite myself captivated by the dance of immaturity and development, of painful loss and grace, involved in Christy's relationship with women who fell under his spell over the years, and whom he, in turn, turned into muse figures.
Of course there is a certain voyeurism in this delving into private letters. There are letters here that are naive and emotionally raw, but Jordan puts his finger on a key element in the picture when he writes about the intensity of feeling which develops in a significantly disabled, sensitive and intelligent man looking for a life of love and sexual fulfilment. (The same applies mutatis mutandis for a woman, of course).
The main roles in Jordan's narrative are taken by Christy's mother, Bridget Brown - (her Mother Courage status remains intact); Katriona Maguire nee Delahunt, a young social worker who befriended him from childhood to the end of his life; Patricia Sheehan, an inspirational doctor who helped him improve his speech considerably; Beth Moore, a married American woman who brought Christy out to the United States; and his wife, Mary Brown.
The portrayal of Christy is not always flattering; there was a certain ruthless eye for survival in Christy which meant people and institutions were discarded when they had served their purpose, but overall there was great vitality in Christy's life "amongst women".
Jordan's account of the relationship with Beth Moore highlights a more severe disability than Christy's physical ailments - an undisciplined lushness in his language. There is an as yet untold story of the propensity of writers with a major communication disability to indulge in language of abnormal density and luxuriance, resulting in a strain and contortion almost mirroring the body image.
With Christy, this tendency took root early and it was only when he was under the tutelage of Beth Moore, and willing to accept a measure of discipline and criticism, that his writing shook off a tendency towards sprawl.
Many critics were unsparing in assessing Brown's painting and writing, especially his later novels. In similar vein, while I would salute Jordan's labour of love in putting on the record some truths underlying the Christy Brown legend, the book overall ends up being a series of vignettes which would have benefited considerably from a firmer editorial hand.
Jack Hanna is the author of The Friendship Tree: The Life and Poems of Davoren Hanna, soon to be reissued as a paperback.