It is certainly a dark and fascinating twist to the tale of Christy Brown, although it is notable that the voices of Mary's friends or family don't feature in the book. 'It seems, though, that the relationship slowly eroded his soul, destroying his art and then him,' says Hambleton. The bruises found on his body even suggest Mary was abusive in the end. In the end, Christy died at the age of 49 after choking on a dinner of lamb chops. In his final years, those he was once closest to barely saw him. He ended a 10-year affair with a married woman, Beth Moore (depicted here as a beautiful love story) to be with her. Mary Carr took Christy away from his friends and family and from his beloved Dublin, according to Hambleton. Knitting together the memories of his siblings and closest friends, the author has built a portrait of a man who lived his later life in an angry, alcoholic haze, married to a prostitute and lesbian who had affairs and neglected him. They depicted Christy as marrying a nurse and living happily until his death in 1981. But this is also a story of 'depression, isolation and physical suffering', revealing a darkness in later life that the film-makers either did not know about or chose to ignore. Hambleton captures that story, portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis in the Oscar-winning film My Left Foot, beautifully. Two bestselling books later and Christy had proved all the doctors wrong. Bridget spent hours helping him learn to read and write in a time when education for the disabled was simply not an option. In the end, it was his left foot, the only part of his body that he could control, that unlocked Christy's potential. It was a crippling disability that meant, though 'his body was almost useless, his mind was perfect'. In this powerful biography, Georgina Louise Hambleton paints a wonderful image of a mother's unswerving devotion.Ĭhristy was born in 1932 with cerebral palsy after suffering partial suffocation during birth. This might be the story of Christy's life, but it is also a tribute to Bridget, a woman whose determination, love and dogged refusal to send her son to a home allowed him to flourish as a writer, poet and painter against all the odds. It was August 1968 and the poem was a dedication to his mother, Bridget, whose recent death had plunged Christy 'into the worst depression he would ever suffer'.

Christy brown story