num_pages: 156
description: Critics have placed O'Brien in the upper echelon of Irish novelsts. This 1961 comic novel relates the lives of two orphaned Dublin brothers sent to live with their fiery uncle. "The conversation is a delight," said LJ 's reviewer, "it seems no Irishman can be dull when talking--and the atmosphere of a lower-middle-class family, with its cheerless, shabby, restricted way of life, is well done."
language: English
title: The Hard Life
titlecomplete: The Hard Life
genres: Fiction, Ireland, British Literature, Humor, Literature, Classics, Novels, Irish Literature, 20th Century, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 1012
places: Ireland, Dublin
publisher: Penguin Books