It's instructive as well as entertaining to compare the two autobiographies composed by [Hugh Leonard]; one is the play "Da" …, and the other is ["Home Before Night", an] eloquent little book of merry and bitter reminiscence. Contrary to what one might expect, the play is leisurely and the book pell-mell. In the theatre, we are allowed to take our time in getting to know the easygoing gardener-father, the disappointed mother, the tight-lipped employer; between covers, these characters are hurled into our presence along with a score of others, whose harum-scarum ways measure up to the high standard of folly and rascality that we encounter with delight in O'Casey and Joyce. The playwright speaks colloquially, the autobiographer employs a prose that approaches the intensity and ellipsis of poetry; metaphors stinging and tender tumble about in happy profusion. Mr. Leonard …, comes early enough to autobiography; he has led a life of classic Irish disarray, and he presents it to us with a pride that turns all Irishmen into heroes and mock heroes…. (pp. 102-03)