Brian O'Nolan

The Hard Life: An Exegesis of Squalor is a comic novel by Flann O'Brien. Published in 1961, it was O'Brien's fourth novel and the third to be published.. Set in turn-of-the-century Dublin, The Hard Life is a satirical Bildungsroman that deals with the education and upbringing of the narrator, Finbarr, and his brother …