Author describes life with ‘punishing’ Gebler

NOVELIST Edna O’Brien has revealed her first husband was so jealous of her writing ability he said he would never forgive her.

She also recalled how a parish priest in the parish of Scariff near where she grew up in Co Clare burned a copy of The Country Girls over its depiction of sex and relationships.

Speaking on the RTÉ programme, The Meaning of Life, presented by Gay Byrne, the novelist and short story writer said her husband, Ernest Gebler, was a “judgmental or punishing figure”.

Now aged 78, she said she had been “unlucky in love” and recalled the reaction of her father when she became involved with Gebler, who had already divorced.

“I had burnt my boats by going with the man I later married,” she said. “My own family later pursued us and was violent actually towards my future husband.”

She recalled a fight in which Gebler was punched or kicked in a scene she likened to something from “the Middle Ages” and where she felt like “a witch”, except instead she was “a fallen woman”.

“By then I knew that I had cast my lot and I had, and there is no going back,” she said, adding that her husband did love her but was also determined to exert complete control, a situation exacerbated by her growing reputation as a writer.

She also said her father had a “high, volatile temper”, while her mother was always working and “making the house right”.

Ms O’Brien, who was back in Ireland in the past week as her play, Haunted, was staged in the Gaiety Theatre, said she did not have a happy childhood.

“I was full of fear and, where there is fear, there isn’t happiness.”

However, she said she did forgive her father before he died.

Ms O’Brien’s memoirs, soon to be published, are expected to detail her dealings with a range of famous figures, including Marlon Brando and Jackie Onassis.