Author: Shauna Gilligan

Writer and Educator based in Ireland.
Writer Interview, Writers Chat, Writers Read, Writing Life

Writers Chat 56: Tara Masih on “How We Disappear” (Press 53: North Carolina, 2022)

Tara, How lovely to feature your work again on my Writers Chat series. We last chatted in 2020, about The Bitter Kind, a flash novelette and today we’re talking about your latest publication, How We Disappear (Press 53: North Carolina, 2022), a novella and stories – a Millions Most Anticipated book!

Cover of How We Disappear showing a painting of a woman disappearing or emerging against a light turquoise background

SG: I had the sense that How We Disappear is as much about appearance, judgement and expectation as it is about how we disappear and are disappeared. I was particularly moved by the last story in the collection, “Notes to the World” where the protagonist, Grigori finds that the notes he is reading speak not just of the woman’s life but also of his own. I loved the effect of the stories mirroring – literally timeless – but also how you show the repetition of human behaviour in relationships, who lives/survives, who hunts/is hunted and that haunting last line, “let me hear your voice”. Can you explain your intentions with the collection and the title (and the beautiful cover)?

TM: The stories were written over a period of time (“Those Who Have Gone” was actually written decades ago), and there was no intent in any of them to link up. It wasn’t until I realized I had enough for a collection and started looking at the stories to order them that I saw the connection of disappearance.

I think the various ways disappearance can be examined or experienced is only partially shown in this collection, but I do think my personal relationship history together with my upbringing in the sixties as a mixed child in a very white community allows me to understand both the feeling of having been left and the feeling of not being seen. Of disappearing into the background. What most allows us to be seen? I don’t think it’s all through the visual (though there is visual judgment) as much as through auditory (I include sign language as “auditory”). I think we have a greater need to be “heard” than seen, though both are powerful, often interchangeable needs. I want readers who have always had the benefit of being seen and heard to understand what it’s like to fight to be recognized, and I want those who can relate to the themes to find themselves or find ways to make better decisions so they can function at their best. We’ve also been collectively traumatized by the covid pandemic and many have lost loved ones. I hope some of the stories allow readers to work through the grief process.

The cover image is gorgeous and designer Claire V. Foxx did a beautiful job of making the type reflect the theme. She is the one who noted that the woman could be viewed as either disappearing or emerging.

SG: I love how you bring in the senses and all types of language and communication here, Tara. In “Fleeing Gravity” you tell a story that feels like an epic fairytale, yet it is grounded in history and colonisation. Ghosts flit in and out of reality – physically and psychologically – and it seemed to me that it was their story as much as Brandy’s story of displacement, creation and destruction. He says of the female ghost Miz Annabelle Fourier, “It’s easy to love a ghost who asks nothing of you”. I also found that this story had echoes – in terms of the relationships – of “In A Sulfate Mist”. What was your thinking behind these two stories?

TM: There is no conscious connection between those two stories outside of the fact that I’m drawn to stories set in the natural world. I love placing characters into landscapes and allowing those exterior settings to influence story and behavior. “Fleeing Gravity” began with my wanting to set a character in a ghost town. What would it be like to live among ghosts on a daily basis? To be a caretaker and be the only one left there at the end of the day? I also wanted to highlight the plight of the Montana “Landless Indians,” as they called themselves, who fought for recognition from our government for decades. They were basically told they were not worthy to exist and should disappear into the landscape. I’m thrilled to report that before this book got published the Little Shell Tribe members finally achieved their goal and are now federally recognized. They have essentially become “visible.”

Which brings up other issues such as power. Who holds it, and how it’s wielded to make others powerless by making them invisible.

SG: I think you’ve done a great job of highlighting the plight of the Little Shell Tribe members and here is hoping that in now being officially “visible”, the needs and rights are upheld and the Tribe treasured. A number of the stories in the collection explore connections between environment, emotion and story. I’m thinking here, for example, of “Delight” and “Billy Said This Really Happened to Lucy.” Desire is by the sea, Lucy is by the marsh and they both have ambiguous relationships with their surrounds. I really enjoyed the characters’ realisation about themselves and the land/sea around them and the powerful role that parental stories play in forming impressions, teaching social norms, particularly in relation to gender, the body and control. Can you talk about this?

TM: While I love the natural world, I recognize its disinterest in us. And its destructive power. Nature is beautiful and restorative. Nature is full of fury and can obliterate anything in its path in seconds. There are many writers now exploring the genre of cli-fi fiction. My writing doesn’t go that far into what we are facing now, but perhaps as someone who is bicultural, I try to present the reality of both sides. The same for people. In “Delight,” we first see the father as a typical abusive parent. In the last scene, I hope readers catch something else. In the Lucy story, her mother returns in the guise of a poisonous snake. Lucy both welcomes this new interaction but is also wary of it.

We rarely see women in wilderness stories, though that is changing as well. But I still can’t tell you there is a large list of women who write about nature and place, especially in short stories. Men have long had that domain almost exclusively to themselves. My female characters are either learning to be comfortable in that male-dominated wilderness, sometimes with the help of men, or have found their own ways into the wilderness and are leading the way for the men who are following.

SG: I loved how you channelled the writing process – and formation of a writer – in the cleverly constructed “Agatha: A Life in Unauthorised Fragments”. In some ways this story feels like the spine of the collection; it is almost like a reflection on the story telling process. “Every story is an escape story.”

In a way this book helps the readers escape. Did the writing help you escape and do you think this is one of the roles of writing/reading in our lives – and in Agatha’s?  

TM: Thank you. I just loved writing that story. I had studied Christie’s disappearance decades ago in high school. Besides loving her mysteries, I was obsessed with trying to find out what happened when she disappeared. When I realized I needed another story to flesh out this collection I recalled that long ago research and took to it again with great glee. As someone who has a minor in sociology, human behavior totally intrigues me and I have my own theory about what happened. It’s not anything ground-breaking, but I did channel my own experiences as a female writer, as a crisis counsellor, and as a woman who has been cheated on.

The epigram is just something that came to me when I was writing the story. Kind of a voice over, if you will. I think that all stories we tell are either escape hatches from our own lives or attempts to escape from someone or something or even ourselves. I was thinking of all that rather than of readers escaping into the stories, but yes, that is happening as well on the other end of listening or reading a story.

SG: Yes, I think we are touching on the very powerful invisible connection and dialogue between writer and reader! In the novella An Aura Surrounds That Night, a family views the news of the assignation of JFK on the TV, a child who captures slugs that escape and leave silvery trails on the bedroom ceiling comes of age and she begins to notice the inside/outside-ness of life:

“But there was Grammy below me, now trapped inside herself, while outside Japanese beetles, lightning bugs, moths, mosquitoes, gnats were flying into the window screens, banging and buzzing.”

Like other characters in the stories, she has the gift of second sight (hence the title) yet the gift cannot stop what is going to happen to her sister. I loved this novella and I think the placement in the book worked very well – the narrative carried much of the sensibility of the early stories and was one which I found really poignant. Have you any plans to write more of this story…?

TM: Ha! You are not the first to want more. I’m afraid at this point that story is as fully told as I can make it. It did begin as a novel and I just could not take it where it needed to go. But I kept tinkering with it, not wanting to lose the sisters entirely. When I finally recast it as a flash novella, it all fell into place. The writing flowed, the scenes congealed, and so I have to say it’s in the form it’s meant to be in, no more, no less. But never say never, right?

Thanks again for noticing and appreciating what I was trying to do not only with the story but the full collection. It warms my heart and helps keep me writing!

SG: Oh so wonderful to chat with you, Tara, and your writing warms many hearts. Now lastly, some fun questions:

  • Beach or mountains? Beach for sure. Love the ocean and all things watery.
  • Silence or noise when writing? Silence. Noise stresses me out.
  • Kindle, paperback or hardback? Hardback or paperback. Nothing beats the tactile feeling of a book in hand.
  • Dogs or cats? Love cats.
  • I love cats, too! So, what is the most surprising read you’ve had this year? I found a book in a remainder bin and loved it. The Australia Stories by Todd James Pierce. I don’t know why I never heard of it. A hybrid novel that was likely ahead of its time.
Tara Masih, Photograph courtesy of Tara Masih

Connect with Tara via her website.

Thank you to Press 53 and Tara for the advance copy of How We Disappear.

Writer Interview, Writers Chat, Writers Read

Writers Chat 55: Catherine Dunne on “A Name For Himself” (Arlen Classic Literature: Dublin, 2022)

Catherine, You are very welcome to my Writers Chat series. We’re here to discuss A Name For Himself first published in 1988 and re-issued this year as part of the Arlen Classic Literature Series. I finished reading the novel on the same weekend that The Irish Times published Stolen Lives, a heart-stopping report on the “239  violent deaths of women in Ireland from 1996 to today”. It is an awful thing to say that the narrative of A Name For Himself speaks of a horrible truth still present and persistent in our society. But it also reminds us of the role novels have, as you say in your Afterword, “in exploring the texture of our daily lives in a way that can help us understand ourselves and others better.”

Cover of A Name For Himself showing a painting of a man in black with his arms around a woman in pale yellow against a background of houses and within wooden houses (painting by Tove Kregs Lange)

SG: So let’s begin with the title which tells us something about what motivates Farrell (one of the main protagonists) but also speaks of the role of class, money and reputation in Ireland. Can you talk about how you came to decide on this title A Name For Himself?

CD: Thank you, Shauna, for your invitation to take part in ‘Writers Chat’ and to discuss A Name for Himself on the occasion of its reissue by Arlen House.

In one way, it feels as though the writing of Farrell’s story took place a long time ago (it did) but in another, it’s a novel that still feels very recent. I continue to have a strangely intimate connection with Farrell and Grace. I think that’s partly because their story became my second novel: the one that made me believe I was on my way to becoming a writer. I say ‘becoming’ because I’d come across the view – on multiple occasions – that ‘everyone has a book in them’. And once my first book was ‘out’, I was genuinely terrified that that was it: the well had now run dry!

So, writing A Name for Himself was a very special experience. It was a complete departure from my first published work, In the Beginning, which drew on those contemporary issues and relationships that were familiar to me. But the story of Farrell and Grace – apart from one moment of inspiration, or perhaps recognition is a better word: that moment when a writer becomes aware that the spark of a new story has ignited – my second novel was a work entirely of the imagination.

During my career as a teacher, I’d spent the best part of two decades working in a disadvantaged area of Dublin. The 1980s in Ireland were a dismal time economically and socially.  It was also a decade of high emigration: more than 200,000 people left this country during those years. As teachers, we felt we were educating an entire generation for the dole queue, or the emigrant boat. Those years brought me face to face with deprivation in a way that had a huge impact on me. I saw ‘up close and personal’ the devastation caused by lack of resources, by intergenerational unemployment, by lack of opportunity and by social attitudes towards ‘the working class’.

When I began to imagine Farrell, his background came to me fully formed. I have always believed in the notion that writers don’t choose our stories: instead, our stories choose us. And when Farrell began to colonise my writer’s imagination, he emerged from a disadvantaged background, one he was determined to escape. He wanted, needed, to make a better life for himself. When his family of origin fell apart, he took every opportunity offered to him to be independent and self-sufficient. Through the kindness and solidarity of his local community, he became first a carpenter, then a master craftsman.

Everything about Farrell’s rejection of his background propelled him to create, rather than destroy. He wanted nothing to do with the violence and chaos that his father had created within the family. He rejected everything about him: appalled at the damage he had done. From an early age, Farrell even refused to call himself Vincent, or Vinny: that name belonged to his father, it was no part of him.

And so the title of the novel was born from Farrell’s determination to forge his own path, to have no connection with his hated father, to become his own, separate self.

I already knew what the trajectory of Farrell’s life would be, even before I began to write. I knew that he would behave in a way that was likely to make him infamous: he would indeed make ‘a name for himself’ in the process. And so, with that double helix of naming, the novel’s title was born.

SG: What a wonderful insight into your process and inspiration, Catherine. Thank you. Now, although A Name for Himself is not set in the present day, there is much of the way society works – the rush to secure property, the demand for tradesmen, the blooming craft businesses – that echoes in the Ireland of today. I think the Dublin that you capture is still recognisable. Are you surprised at the timelessness of place?

CD: Returning to the novel after a quarter of a century, there were many surprises: and some of the echoes, as you call them, were chilling.

I was writing in and about the mid-1990s, the period that led to the Celtic Tiger, to escalating house prices, to full employment, to the accumulation of wealth to a degree we had never experienced before. It was a heady time, for some: property became the new religion for men like P.J., and craftsmen like Farrell were in high demand.

It was a time of great economic and social change.

For Farrell and Grace, such affluent times provide them with an opportunity to be independent. But ironically, they also remind Farrell of the difference in class between him and the woman he loves.

The first time he sees Grace, in her father’s building in Merrion Square, the elegant surroundings emphasise to him – the man in the worker’s overalls, the man with a Dublin accent – that this woman is out of his league. Her father agrees, and this dangerous dynamic, this silent, subterranean tug-of-war between the two men has the potential to be every bit as damaging as the actions of Farrell’s own father.

I think we like to believe that class in Ireland is not an issue in the way it is, say, in Britain. I disagree. And along with economic prosperity, greed, and ruthless property developers, class divisions are still part of our society today.

SG: And that’s what this novel highlights I think. In Farrell, you’ve created an incredibly complex character who we come to love, as Grace does. Mia Gallagher in her excellent Foreword, outlines this reader position so well in that, similar to real life situations, we are totally taken by how he is presented, how he presents himself and how he is seen. It is only when we begin to feel what is behind his actions (or if we read carefully) – fear, inadequacy, lack of self-worth and so on – that we begin to see what he might be capable of. Can you talk about how you developed Farrell’s character?

CD: The development of Farrell’s character is just one of the chilling aspects of this novel that I referred to earlier.

I became completely obsessed by him during the writing process. I had nightmares about him. I saw the world, not through his eyes, but as though I was perched on his shoulder. I watched, sometimes horrified, at the way his character was unfolding. It all felt strangely inevitable. I followed where he led.

I know there are writers who will disagree with that last statement: who will say that the writer is always in control of her characters. And while that is true – I can kill off whomsoever I like, whenever I like, for example – it still feels deeply necessary to follow the shadowy paths that often appear to us, unbidden, in the tangled forest of the writing process.

I didn’t consciously choose what Farrell would do next, what he would ultimately become: it was much more instinctive, more intuitive than that. I went where it felt right.

And I was aware that Farrell’s fear of abandonment, his lack of self-worth, his sense of ownership when it came to Grace: all of these aspects of his emotional landscape created a powder-keg of dangerous possibilities.

But I needed the reader to feel empathy for Farrell. I knew what he was going to do – but I also knew that we tend to label people as ‘monsters’ when they perform monstrous acts that we don’t understand. It’s a way of creating distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ – but that distance is in no way useful in helping us to understand what drives us – all of us – to do the sometimes terrible things that we do.

The term ‘coercive control’ was not in current usage in the 1990s, in the way it is now. But I had observed such behaviour in action and understood that men who were bent on controlling their wives or partners often appeared on the surface to be vulnerable, devoted, caring: ideal partners and spouses, pillars of their community.

How many times have we seen evidence of that volitional distance between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in the aftermath of a domestic tragedy? How many times have we heard the perpetrator described by others, in the wake of some violent atrocity against a woman, as a ‘lovely, quiet man’?

And although, for the purposes of the novel, I had a clear view of how Farrell and Grace’s story would end, it felt important not to portray him as a monster. At one point, I give him the chance to confront his demons and perhaps create the possibility of another life for him and Grace. But he rejects it, clinging instead to his own sense of entitlement and ownership.

SG: I think that sense of, as you put it, feeling, your way into Farrell’s actions is also felt by the reader in the atmosphere that runs through the novel. The multiple narratives work brilliantly in shining a light for the reader on the evolution of Farrell and his actions, especially the haunting present day “now” narrative that slips in, unsuspecting, and then increases with such tension until the narrative catches up (in time) with that day, that birthday. As I was reading it, a large part of me was hoping that the seemingly inevitable would not happen while knowing it would. Did these narratives come once the story and ending were cemented or did you start there and work your way back?

CD: The series of present tense scenes – one of which opens the novel – were written after the main narrative was complete. But from the beginning, I had three narrative strands in mind. The contemporary story of Farrell and Grace’s meeting and their growing relationship; seminal scenes from Farrell’s past, both childhood and adolescence; and finally, the ‘now’ scenes, scattered throughout the narrative to increase suspense and to highlight the inevitability of what is going to happen.

I began writing this novel in 1995. It’s not that I have a prodigious memory (I wish), but I was so consumed by the creative process during the two years of writing that I made copious notes about structure, about characters, about significant childhood events – I mostly used file cards, back then.  Word processing was still new and I had greater faith in pen and paper. I still like to use notebooks when I’m working on something new – something about the slower pace of handwriting makes for a more reflective process.

From 1995-1997, the writing of A Name for Himself was an experience of total immersion. I had taken a career break from work, and was acutely aware of the ticking clock. I had a limited amount of time to write this book, and it was one of the many occasions over the intervening almost 30 years that I have understood the value of deadlines.

Those two years also taught me that writing is an organic process. The act of writing in itself creates inspirational moments – the ability to see clearly those inviting paths in the forest I referred to earlier.

Turning up at the desk is the first essential. Words follow.

SG: What dedication to your craft and I love how you used the immersion and set time that you had to both write and also record how you wrote. What a wonderful thing to be able to look back on those index cards! Definitely for the archive. In relation to making, Farrell is “a maker in a most tangible craft” (Mia Gallagher) and I found it reassuring that Grace, too, is a maker, an identity denied to her by the men in her life (most notably her father) – until she meets Farrell.

I was really interested in how A Name For Himself therefore also explores the act of naming and, through this, agency. Farrell drops his first name “Vincent/Vinny” so that it is not tinged with the actions of his father and so understands Grace’s struggle to name who she is, and what she is. This enables him to literally open doors for her to make her dolls. There is, however, also the sense that Grace creates the dolls with care parallel to Farrell’s conjuring of Grace-as-possession. Can you talk a little about this aspect of the novel?

CD: Farrell does indeed understand Grace’s need to create, and to carve out an independent life for herself. In this, her needs are a reflection of his own. But his efforts to help her fulfil her dreams are, in fact, driven more by Farrell’s need to be in control than Grace’s need to be free and independent of her father.

Even at the very start of their relationship, we see Farrell’s obsession, his overwhelming need to be the ‘master craftsman’: ‘Grace held his arm tighter. Farrell thought he would explode. By the time they reached the city centre, he had planned and mapped and fashioned the rest of their lives’.

At a later stage, Farrell says to P.J. that he intends ‘to give her [Grace] a good life’ (my itlaics). As though her life is a gift that he has the power to grant her.

In many ways, Farrell is recreating the family he lost in the way he relates to Grace. It’s as though she becomes a child, someone whose whole future depends on how he crafts it – rather than an adult woman with agency of her own.

He oversees her making of dolls, Noah’s arks, toys of all kinds with a pleasure that is a complex mix of emotions, a mix designed to make the reader uneasy.

Yes, I felt that when reading it, that he was creating a child out of her, but also enabling her to create her own ‘children’ (the ones they long for) in the dolls and toys.

Lastly, Catherine, some short questions:

Do you usually have one book or numerous books on the go? If we’re talking about reading, rather than writing, then yes, I very happily have several books on the go at the same time. There are ‘upstairs books’ and ‘downstairs books’, and for Luas and bus journeys, there’s the ultimate ‘handbag book’ – my trusty Kindle. Although paper claims my affection and loyalty every time – a Kindle is for convenience.

As far as writing is concerned, I can’t focus on more than one obsession at a time. The most I can manage is, say, working on an essay at the same time as a piece of fiction.

I love the idea of upstairs and downstairs books, and that you use a Kindle (I do for travelling). So, quiet or noise when you’re writing? I used to believe I needed absolute quiet for writing. Then I spent several months in India. The only safe electrical connection in the village was in the local cafe, so I used to go there every morning.

That year, the cricket world cup was underway and the entire community for miles around came to watch the matches on the big TV screen. As you can imagine, the men’s enthusiasm was not expressed quietly. Apart from that, it’s difficult to find a quiet spot in India anyway – its large population makes sure of that. Very quickly, I learned to tune out the noise.

I still prefer quiet – but it’s good to know that I can adapt.

Generally, do you plot/plan or go where the writing takes you? I have a dreadful sense of direction. Anybody who knows me will tell you that. Even following a map, I have the capacity to get spectacularly lost. Some of my most enjoyable journeys have resulted from not knowing where I’m going.

Writing is a bit like that. I’ve always liked the comfort of having a map – a starting point and an end point: that was certainly the case with A Name for Himself and indeed, for subsequent novels.

But getting lost in the forest is also part of the joy.

Right now, as I start a new piece of work, I’m adopting a different approach. I have a vague idea about my idea – and I’m going where the process takes me.

I remember seeing children in primary school being encouraged to ‘take a line for a walk’ – just follow your crayon across the page and see what picture emerges.

That’s what I’m doing now. It’s strange, and different, and exhilarating.

I’ve no idea where I’m going next.

What freedom in just seeing what emerges! Coffee or Tea? In the morning, coffee for sure! In the afternoon, different types of tea.

What’s the next three books on your reading pile? They are all books that have been overlooked for a while, because I got carried away with so many other sources of printed temptation. So I’ve promised myself to go back to them. They are: The Nine Lives of Pakistan by Declan Walsh. Fifty Words for Snow by Nancy Campbell. No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood.

A great selection, Catherine! Thank you for such insights into your process, the thinking behind some of the characters and for your generosity in answering my probing questions.

Catherine Dunne (Photo: Noel Hillis)

Purchase A Name For Himself.

Follow Catherine Dunne.

Read Catherine Dunne’s article in The Irish Times about what inspired this novel.

Writer Interview, Writers Chat, Writers Read

Writers Chat 54: Deirdre Shanahan on “Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind” (Bluemoose Books: Hebden Bridge, 2019)

Deirdre, You’re very welcome to my WRITERS CHAT series. We’re here to talk about Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind (Bluemoose Books: Hebden Bridge, 2019).

Cover of Caravan of the lost and left behind by Deirdre Shanahan. Image shows a winding country-side road by the sea with a back-drop of a pink sky, setting sun against dark mountains.

SG: Before we get into the narrative and people in the novel, can you talk about the origins of the title and the stunning cover?

DS: This is really interesting to answer as the title is not the one I used at submission, as the publisher thought it sounded too science fictiony. So though I like it very much and initially felt unable to come up with another title- having been told this just before Xmas, I somehow went into overdrive and came up with others. This was one of them and was accepted.

I liked the word ‘caravan’ not just for the sense we have of it but for its original derivation- which I hoped, maybe in my naiveté,  gave a more universal  suggestion. In the Oxford dictionary it says:  Eastern or North African company of merchants, pilgrims etc travelling together for safety.  I love this. ‘The Lost and Left Behind’  – anyone who does not feel part of the main body  – anyone at a particular time in their lives who feels separate from the whole.

I have always been  interested, sometimes felt like this myself and really this is where the interesting stories are- on the perimeters of the mainstream – in whatever group –  for instance even  the main character in Edward St Aubyn’s Melrose novels  is ill at ease and misunderstood -does not feels be ‘belongs’   to the  aristocratic group he is born into and it is this distance which allows the sardonic tone to the novel.

You could say as much about Heathcliff, any of Jane Austen’s heroines who feel they don’ t quite fit in. Elizabeth Strout’s characters- Leila Slimani’s. I think all the interesting stories are found where people feel out of place and to be ‘looking in.’ My main characters are those who feel socially / emotionally and psychologically different – who are not immediately at home in the world.

The cover. This was not how I originally envisaged the cover, but after a series of other ideas were submitted to me, including a generic kind of landscape, I thought  the latter would  work if it was heightened, in some way, if the colours were kind of electric and weird, suggesting turbulence and displacement so that is what I pushed for. Thank you. I am glad you like it.

SG: I think the colours are gorgeous on the cover and it really draws the reader in. Now, structurally Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind is divided into four sections – places which represent hope and the possibility of belonging – and we follow Eve and her son Torin on their journey of escape. Did the structure, the story or the characters come first to you?

DS: You sensed one of my primary concerns when embarking on this novel and my initial thoughts. My  original idea was  4 first person narratives relate the story and was much influenced by Louise Erdrich’s  work–  until I found very little moved  in the development of the characters. I realised I was constricting myself within an imposed form that just did not suit the story I wanted to tell. And I had no need to do this.  So I  started again but that was a good thing.

I found that a 3rd person narrative overall but structured into four parts allowed me the breadth to convey the story and the shifts in narrative. It was an easier structural form than I was making. It impressed upon me how, for me, the story dictates how it wants to be told. Form comes after- is secondary.

There seemed to be 4 distinct movements of the story which I wanted to emphasise, and they became the four sections.

SG: That’s great to hear how you worked through what was best for the story itself – so often this happens when writing novels, our original structure needs to change when the story is clear. The search for family is one of the main themes of the novel. Absent and unknown fathers and mothers, siblings, and at the same the wonderful ease of deep understanding that exists between the characters – Torin, a stranger, is welcomed into both the site and the town, though he doesn’t quite know how to handle belonging. Both Torin and Caitlin dream of finding their fathers but as Caitlin says,

“Dreams are as delicate as the bones of a thrush, and if you grind them down like the poor bird, there will be no flight.”

Can you talk about this?

DS: I think exploring the inner life, dreams, longings, regrets, etc of characters  are what the novel is best at, and is a uniquely privileged  form to undertake this- it offers a unique opportunity to show the inner lives of people – how they are in themselves and how they are in relation to others. The novel offers the space and breadth to do so. Although in some ways the lives of my characters have been restricted they still have hopes and dreams – maybe these are all the stronger for the little material effects and wealth they have.  Their dreams have been squashed but are still present and alive in terms of what they feel.

In youth, dreams are powerful  and I wanted Caitlin to feel she had the passion and power to have ideas beyond her situation but she is wise as well and can see they could be easily snuffed out. She has lived between people, in unstable situations, enduring a greater loss as I saw it, in that she has neither parent around, but  I wanted her, as opposed to Torin, to have a strong sense of how she wanted change and recover her life. She is like a catalyst for change which Torin knocks up against and it provides the means for both of them to move on.

SG: The theme of the outsider – and how we “other” ourselves and people we don’t know – is also threaded through the novel. Torin lives in constant fear that his past will catch up on him while simultaneously confronting his mother’s alienating past; Eva returns to a person rather than a place that she calls home. Eva puts it thus:

“It was what she wanted, to be taken back to where she started and sitting in a bar with a man who would make her feel better.”

And Torin sees that “she did not fit in there, she did not fit in here.” How important is the notion of “home” to the novel, given many of the characters live their lives moving from place to place?

DS: I think we all strive for a place where we feel we fit in and belong which we might call home, whether or not it is a geographical location and can sometimes feel as if we don’t belong whether in a larger political sociological sense or in more personal relationships.  To belong to a group or to another person is, I think,  a deep human need  we strive to fulfill for better or worse.  To have a sense of ‘home,’ whether we wish to find that within the group or with one other,  is a universal concept and despite my characters sense of one being transitory and temporary, I wanted the search for one to be a central thread in the novel.

 ‘Home’ is an increasingly powerful and resonating notion as we hear daily of those who have to leave their homes, or are displaced from them whether within a country or having to flee to another. Right now, my Ukrainian friend and her mother are unlikely to see their home again, something which I find really unsettling and upsetting.

Home  is such an emotional concept. We all start from one and spend time trying to create / recreate one in latter years. Even if one rejects some of the ideas around home and how it may be restricting, I wanted my characters to have a sense of the gap in their lives but not knowing where exactly their home lay and to be searching for it.

SG: In this sense your novel really examines timeless and universal themes. Love casts shadows and lights up their lives – family, friends, strangers – and I liked how every day love and compassion is shown with a gentle pace which allows the reader some reflection. In this sense it brought to mind another Bluemoose book, Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession. Would you agree that Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind is character and theme driven rather than plot driven?

DS: Yes, I would agree and very much hope the novel is driven by character. As explained above, the novel for me is the realm to explore human psychology – our wants and needs, dreams and fascinations. Of course the novel can do other things- it can present a puzzle in terms of crime or thriller but I wanted to examine a cast of characters and see what motivated them, follow them in their hopes and dreams. The way we are as human beings is endlessly fascinating. We are a complex mixture of emotions and it seems to me that is the most rich ground on which to work in terms of a novel. Nothing about us is straightforward and I hope I illustrate the depth and complexity of what it means to be human, to be alive.

 I hope the characters’ development provides  staging posts for the narrative to move.  I hope I portray characters who interact with each other and this provides the grit for the momentum of the novel.

SG: Lastly, the writing is lyrical, sensual and so beautifully set in the landscape of the coast which contrasts with the life in London that Eva and Torin have fled. Despite being a stranger to the natural world – seen very movingly in the scene with Caitlin where they find jellyfish – Torin has a sense of generational memory of being “from the sea” even though “this outside world overwhelmed him.” Do you think the writing is a vital part of the story?

DS: I think you must mean, do I think the way I write, which you describe as ‘lyrical, sensual’  adds to the story?  Please let me know if I have got this wrong.

SG: You’ve got it right – yes, I’m asking about how the sensual writing and your use of the senses serves to examine the feel and experience of rural/urban life.

DS: Yes I think it does at least I hope so. I hope the way I write helps convey some sense of how the characters like  Torin experience the world. I have to say though that I do not labour to create this sense. I am afraid it is the way I write. The natural world is evocative for me and I think I have transferred some of my delight with it to  Torin. I do not purposefully or consciously think, oh now I must write in a lyrical mode. This is the way the writing comes out. I know at times I have to reign myself in as it could be a distraction, and may not adhering to a characters make-up and real way of being.

Because much of the novel is set in landscape I suppose I allowed myself a freer licence to write in this way or rather, the writing came out like this. When I write about cities or other situations I can be terser in my style of writing. I try not to think about it too much.

So, to finish up, Deirdre, some fun questions:

  • City or Countryside? Countryside – ultimately after lots of indecision, I came down on this side. I love cities for all they offer – stimulation, chance to meet like-minded people etc, but to do my work, I think the quiet of the countryside offers slightly more ideal conditions. I would however keep making forays to the city to catch up.
  • River or sea swimming? Sea  – every time
  • Music or quiet when writing? Quiet – definitely
  • What’s next up on your reading pile? ‘Manhatten Beach’  by  Jennifer Egan
  • What writing are you working on now? A novel set in during the Spanish Civil War as well as another longer piece of fiction and some short stories.

Thanks, Deirdre for such insight into your process and intentions.

Photograph of writer Deirdre Shanahan. Photograph courtesy of Deirdre Shanahan and used with permission.

Buy Caravan of The Lost and Left Behind here.

Buy Carrying Fire and Water (Splice) here

Follow Deirdre Shanahan on her website.

With thanks to Deirdre Shanahan and Bluemoose Books for the copy of Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind.