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Amnesiac: A Memoir
A haunted record of a life devoted to the visual art of the cinema and the written word, by Ireland's greatest director and one of her finest novelists.
In this vivid, moving and strange memoir, Neil Jordan – the author of classic fiction like The Past, Sunrise with Sea Monster and Night in Tunisia, and the creator of celebrated movies like Angel, Mona Lisa, The Crying Game and Interview with the Vampire – reaches deep into his own past and that of his family.
His mother was a painter, his father an inspector of schools who was visited by ghosts, and Jordan grew up on the edge of an abandoned aristocratic estate in north Dublin whose mysterious ruins fed his imagination. Passionate about music, he played in bands and theatre groups and met, at University College Dublin, a young radical called Jim Sheridan. Together they staged unforgettable dramatic productions that hinted at their future careers.
His first collection of stories and first novel, Night in Tunisia and The Past, were met with acclaim, but Jordan was also drawn to the freedom and visual richness of film, and worked with the great English director John Boorman on his Arthurian epic Excalibur. His own first movie with Stephen Rea, Angel, was a brilliant angular take on the horrific violence of the Troubles, and in the years since then his films have combined in a unique way, intense supernatural elements with reflections on violence and sexuality.
Jordan describes his work with Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson, Bob Hoskins, Tom Cruise and many others, but this is not a conventional story of life in the movies. The book is an eerie meditation on loss, love and creativity, on inspiration and influence, by one of the most unusual artists Ireland has produced.
In this vivid, moving and strange memoir, Neil Jordan – the author of classic fiction like The Past, Sunrise with Sea Monster and Night in Tunisia, and the creator of celebrated movies like Angel, Mona Lisa, The Crying Game and Interview with the Vampire – reaches deep into his own past and that of his family.
His mother was a painter, his father an inspector of schools who was visited by ghosts, and Jordan grew up on the edge of an abandoned aristocratic estate in north Dublin whose mysterious ruins fed his imagination. Passionate about music, he played in bands and theatre groups and met, at University College Dublin, a young radical called Jim Sheridan. Together they staged unforgettable dramatic productions that hinted at their future careers.
His first collection of stories and first novel, Night in Tunisia and The Past, were met with acclaim, but Jordan was also drawn to the freedom and visual richness of film, and worked with the great English director John Boorman on his Arthurian epic Excalibur. His own first movie with Stephen Rea, Angel, was a brilliant angular take on the horrific violence of the Troubles, and in the years since then his films have combined in a unique way, intense supernatural elements with reflections on violence and sexuality.
Jordan describes his work with Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson, Bob Hoskins, Tom Cruise and many others, but this is not a conventional story of life in the movies. The book is an eerie meditation on loss, love and creativity, on inspiration and influence, by one of the most unusual artists Ireland has produced.
- GenresMemoirNonfiction
279 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 20, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 17, 2024
Anyone who has ever daydreamed about being a director should read Neil Jordan’s memoir without delay. As careers go, it makes lion taming seem unduly relaxing. Hours are long, rewards meagre. Exploitation is rife. Before The Crying Game became a sleeper hit, cast and crew had deferred most of their pay on the expectation of eventual profit-sharing. Harvey Weinstein, who distributed the film in America, repaid their dedication by hoarding all of the profits while a craven Channel Four, who had financed the film, refused to challenge this blatant crookery.
Jordan’s own life has been lived more honestly and without much apparent disturbance. Even a chapter titled ‘My Paedophile’ barely ripples the water. Rather, he feels more outrage over the recent glut of films about the abuses committed by the Catholic Church. Everyone knew Ireland was a corrupt and priest-ridden theocracy, he says, so why should any Johnny-come-lately get the credit for saying so?
The most involving things in the book are the accounts of early fame. Appearing on Irish television and expecting a quick death at the hands of veteran author Sean O’Faolain, Jordan instead finds himself praised to the moon, which terrifies him even more. After sharing a major award for his first book, at the ceremony his co-winner flies into a rage, smashes the furnishings, and is politely escorted from the premises.
Since then, despite his ex-publisher’s advice, he has written fiction in between films. As his career has wound down (his last worthwhile film was 2012’s Byzantium), consequently he has become more prolific as a novelist: no longer does his Collected Fiction run to only 394 pages.
I don’t think it unfair to say that Jordan’s oeuvre is uneven. As he freely admits, he works best when painting from an independent palette. His big-budget films, set in America, tend to flop; his smaller-budget films, set in Ireland, England or both, fare better. The Butcher Boy still strikes me as his best film.
Jordan started out as a short story writer - his first book, Night in Tunisia, is still in print - but his normal economy is lacking. Instead, a false economy dominates. His addiction to sentence fragments, that most over-used of contemporary literary devices, is not enticing. (‘Angela Lansbury played a fairy tale granny with all of the wit she had brought to Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Sweeney Todd. David Warner, Terence Stamp, Sarah Patterson, Micha Bergese, Tusse Silberg, Stephen Rea, Danielle Dax.’)
He also has a tendency to ramble (has any author put so many questions to himself in such a short space?) and he too often repeats the same stories in different chapters - perhaps explaining the book’s title.
Jordan’s own life has been lived more honestly and without much apparent disturbance. Even a chapter titled ‘My Paedophile’ barely ripples the water. Rather, he feels more outrage over the recent glut of films about the abuses committed by the Catholic Church. Everyone knew Ireland was a corrupt and priest-ridden theocracy, he says, so why should any Johnny-come-lately get the credit for saying so?
The most involving things in the book are the accounts of early fame. Appearing on Irish television and expecting a quick death at the hands of veteran author Sean O’Faolain, Jordan instead finds himself praised to the moon, which terrifies him even more. After sharing a major award for his first book, at the ceremony his co-winner flies into a rage, smashes the furnishings, and is politely escorted from the premises.
Since then, despite his ex-publisher’s advice, he has written fiction in between films. As his career has wound down (his last worthwhile film was 2012’s Byzantium), consequently he has become more prolific as a novelist: no longer does his Collected Fiction run to only 394 pages.
I don’t think it unfair to say that Jordan’s oeuvre is uneven. As he freely admits, he works best when painting from an independent palette. His big-budget films, set in America, tend to flop; his smaller-budget films, set in Ireland, England or both, fare better. The Butcher Boy still strikes me as his best film.
Jordan started out as a short story writer - his first book, Night in Tunisia, is still in print - but his normal economy is lacking. Instead, a false economy dominates. His addiction to sentence fragments, that most over-used of contemporary literary devices, is not enticing. (‘Angela Lansbury played a fairy tale granny with all of the wit she had brought to Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Sweeney Todd. David Warner, Terence Stamp, Sarah Patterson, Micha Bergese, Tusse Silberg, Stephen Rea, Danielle Dax.’)
He also has a tendency to ramble (has any author put so many questions to himself in such a short space?) and he too often repeats the same stories in different chapters - perhaps explaining the book’s title.
October 2, 2025
Full disclosure Neil and I attended the same schools, him being in the year behind me. Although we were only acquaintances, I have followed his writing career more than his film work since that time. Overall, I enjoy his writing, and this applies, with some reservations, to this autobiography. This feels like an excellent framework for a very good future autobiography but by my measure it doesn’t flush out to a satisfying whole- a life- in its current form. I don’t mean more celebrity name dropping and encounters; in fact, most of those herein feel like interruptions. Having said that one of the most interesting parts of this book is the meeting (?) with Grahame Greene. One could only wish for more of such inventiveness. Like Neil, I regard “The End of the Affair” as a great novel, and although I've only seen a few of his films, including the first class “Michael Collins,” I found his adaptation of Greene’s finest work to be truly exceptional.
The autobiography opens with engaging introspection, but this depth is only sporadically sustained throughout the book. The lack of consistent reflection leaves key sections feeling unfinished, and the jump from Belgrove National School to University College Dublin skipping what one may consider the most important formative years (12-18) at St. Paul’s College, seems an important omission.
Although his nonlinear style makes the autobiography engaging, and offers glimpses into his personality, the depth and understanding of "what makes Neil tick" are not to be found here. I come away with the wonder if Neil is not more fully realized and accessible within his novels, in particular “Mistaken “, which is a gem. Interesting personality with talent to the gills… an intriguing character that unfortunately this effort doesn’t begin to explore or satisfy. Small irritant.... the "tuck" shop on Vernon Avenue abuts Seafield Rd, not as described herein.
The autobiography opens with engaging introspection, but this depth is only sporadically sustained throughout the book. The lack of consistent reflection leaves key sections feeling unfinished, and the jump from Belgrove National School to University College Dublin skipping what one may consider the most important formative years (12-18) at St. Paul’s College, seems an important omission.
Although his nonlinear style makes the autobiography engaging, and offers glimpses into his personality, the depth and understanding of "what makes Neil tick" are not to be found here. I come away with the wonder if Neil is not more fully realized and accessible within his novels, in particular “Mistaken “, which is a gem. Interesting personality with talent to the gills… an intriguing character that unfortunately this effort doesn’t begin to explore or satisfy. Small irritant.... the "tuck" shop on Vernon Avenue abuts Seafield Rd, not as described herein.
August 5, 2025
My review in the Arts Fuse:
https://artsfuse.org/314497/august-sh...
Before he became the masterful director of such films as Mona Lisa (1986) and The Crying Game (1992), Neil Jordan was—and continues to be—an accomplished fiction writer, winning prizes for the short story collection Night in Tunisia (1976), among others. Perhaps that’s why his exhilarating Amnesiac – A Memoir (Bloomsbury/ Head of Zeus, 304 pages) does not resemble the autobiographies of other filmmakers—except, perhaps, for Luis Buñuel’s My Last Sigh (1983)—as much as it does those of literary giants. Comparisons can be made with Speak, Memory (1966) by Vladimir Nabokov and even with James Joyce’s 1916 bildungsroman A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (“Has there ever been a worse title for a better book?” asks Jordan in his own paradoxically titled volume).
His approach to memory is contrapuntal, free associative, and filled with uncanny serendipities and seeming trivialities that prove epiphanic. Much of the book revolves around his parents and grandparents. He doesn’t even get to his own birth until about page 40, and not until almost the halfway point does he discuss his debut feature Angel (1982). The first film made by an Irishman in ages, it is about a musician (played by future frequent collaborator Stephen Rea) packing an Uzi in his saxophone case to wreak revenge against terrorists.
A surprise hit in the US, it led to his second film, The Company of Wolves (1984). Here, he combined the horror stories of Angela Carter with the structure of Wojciech Has’s The Saragossa Manuscript and Jaromil Jires’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970). Highlights included the set designs of Anton Furst. An example of Jordan’s knack for eclectic inspiration, the effort was a surprise hit in Britain, but not in the US. It has since developed cult classic status.
It also figures in one of Jordan’s eeriest, palimpsestic memories. A recurrent motif in the book and in his films is bridges, in particular an old one across the River Nanny near the birthplace of his mother. While shaking the hand of Princess Anne (whom he found curiously erotic) at an LA reception for The Company of Wolves, he found out that his father had died of a heart attack—under the same bridge. His father was a great believer in ghosts—would he one day haunt his son? To find out is just one of many reasons to read this sublime book.
–Peter Keough
https://artsfuse.org/314497/august-sh...
Before he became the masterful director of such films as Mona Lisa (1986) and The Crying Game (1992), Neil Jordan was—and continues to be—an accomplished fiction writer, winning prizes for the short story collection Night in Tunisia (1976), among others. Perhaps that’s why his exhilarating Amnesiac – A Memoir (Bloomsbury/ Head of Zeus, 304 pages) does not resemble the autobiographies of other filmmakers—except, perhaps, for Luis Buñuel’s My Last Sigh (1983)—as much as it does those of literary giants. Comparisons can be made with Speak, Memory (1966) by Vladimir Nabokov and even with James Joyce’s 1916 bildungsroman A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (“Has there ever been a worse title for a better book?” asks Jordan in his own paradoxically titled volume).
His approach to memory is contrapuntal, free associative, and filled with uncanny serendipities and seeming trivialities that prove epiphanic. Much of the book revolves around his parents and grandparents. He doesn’t even get to his own birth until about page 40, and not until almost the halfway point does he discuss his debut feature Angel (1982). The first film made by an Irishman in ages, it is about a musician (played by future frequent collaborator Stephen Rea) packing an Uzi in his saxophone case to wreak revenge against terrorists.
A surprise hit in the US, it led to his second film, The Company of Wolves (1984). Here, he combined the horror stories of Angela Carter with the structure of Wojciech Has’s The Saragossa Manuscript and Jaromil Jires’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970). Highlights included the set designs of Anton Furst. An example of Jordan’s knack for eclectic inspiration, the effort was a surprise hit in Britain, but not in the US. It has since developed cult classic status.
It also figures in one of Jordan’s eeriest, palimpsestic memories. A recurrent motif in the book and in his films is bridges, in particular an old one across the River Nanny near the birthplace of his mother. While shaking the hand of Princess Anne (whom he found curiously erotic) at an LA reception for The Company of Wolves, he found out that his father had died of a heart attack—under the same bridge. His father was a great believer in ghosts—would he one day haunt his son? To find out is just one of many reasons to read this sublime book.
–Peter Keough
April 18, 2024
I have long admired many of the films that Neil Jordan has been involved with.Therefore I was delighted to get the opportunity to read the memoir,‘Amnesiac’.
The Book includes an assorted variety of personal stories,including some family background, the philosophical contemplation of alternative options to the life choices made,along with the long term implications,and most interestingly, tales of involvement in the process of making movies,from start to screen.
The most arresting sections for me deal with the author’s experience of being without an abode in London and then participation in an early theatrical performance,which was ahead of its time in addressing a major social issue.
I especially appreciated the recollections about friendship with John Boorman,and the mind blowing legendary film ‘Excalibur’.
The sections dealing with memories of ‘The Crying Game’,’Mona Lisa’,’Interview with the Vampire’, and ‘Michael Collins’,also make for very interesting and enlightening reading,about the processes involved,and the blend of pivotal characters.
Overall an engaging insight into the author’s personal life,background,different ways of thinking,and the creative process in the art of shaping a unique and varied body of memorable films.
The Book includes an assorted variety of personal stories,including some family background, the philosophical contemplation of alternative options to the life choices made,along with the long term implications,and most interestingly, tales of involvement in the process of making movies,from start to screen.
The most arresting sections for me deal with the author’s experience of being without an abode in London and then participation in an early theatrical performance,which was ahead of its time in addressing a major social issue.
I especially appreciated the recollections about friendship with John Boorman,and the mind blowing legendary film ‘Excalibur’.
The sections dealing with memories of ‘The Crying Game’,’Mona Lisa’,’Interview with the Vampire’, and ‘Michael Collins’,also make for very interesting and enlightening reading,about the processes involved,and the blend of pivotal characters.
Overall an engaging insight into the author’s personal life,background,different ways of thinking,and the creative process in the art of shaping a unique and varied body of memorable films.
August 28, 2025
Wonderful
Helpful to have Google close by for the myriad references… a kaleidoscopic life laid out in a beautifully written piece of writing
Helpful to have Google close by for the myriad references… a kaleidoscopic life laid out in a beautifully written piece of writing
August 10, 2024
A great memoir from probably Ireland's greatest ever director. Loved it!
August 9, 2025
The great directors account of his life and work. From the structurally perfect Mona Lisa, the surprise hit Crying Game, the blockbuster Interview with a Vampire and historical epic Michael Collins, Neil Jordan is a master and his range is broad and wide. In this memoir, Jordan recounts his early family life in north Dublin and his career in Dublin theatre and on to the high table of Hollywood fame. On the way, he recounts his friendships with Stanley Kubrick and John Boorman, among many others, and encounters with Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson and the now notorious Harvey Weinstein.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews