Tag: Novel

Writer Interview, Writers Chat

Writers Chat 59: Maureen Gallagher on “Limbo” (Poolbeg Crimson: Dublin, 2022)

Maureen, You are very welcome to my WRITERS CHAT series. Congratulations on your debut novel Limbo: A Kate Frances Mystery (Poolbeg Crimson: Dublin, 2022).

It’s a real page-turner of a thriller that reminds us of how far we’ve come in terms of equality and bodily autonomy but also how far the reality has still to go.

Cover of Limbo featuring seascape and sand dunes with an abandoned pair of child’s boots. This photograph is of Port Arthur in Gweedore, taken by Peter Trant.

Limbo is the first in a series featuring the brilliantly complicated and humanly flawed Detective Kate Francis whom we get to know as Frankie. Tell me about the cover, the title and the series.

MG: Thank you very much for inviting me to WRITERS CHAT, Shauna. The front cover image of Limbo depicts the dunes at Port Arthur strand in northwest Donegal – marram grass and patches of bright sand in the foreground with a view out to sea and the islands in the distance. The image was taken by my brother-in-law – Peter Trant – an accomplished photographer, who is very familiar with the beaches in Gweedore, and took many photographs of the dunes for me to choose from.  The final image is enhanced by David Prendergast, Poolbeg’s designer, who darkened the sky, and skilfully coated the entire landscape with a thrilling orange hue. When it came to choosing a title, Limbo came to me pretty easily, for the layers of meaning that inhabit the word, not least the state of babies souls and the fact that Roche can’t give them a Christian burial. In addition,  Frankie’s indecision and paralysis about what she wants out of life career or family is an important aspect in the novel. The title is also in tune with the tone of the book, which is an attempt to imbue the story with a whiff of incense, given the dominance of the Catholic Church at that time. Limbo is a the first of three. My plan is to set the series at ten-year intervals, so that it charts Frankie’s growth and development personally and professionally, and also gives some idea of the way Ireland has changed in the past 35 years. 

SG: Very interesting to hear about the ten-year intervals. I love that idea and because I really liked Frankie who is very much of her time but is also an everywoman, can you talk about how Frankie developed both as protagonist and character within the framework of the storyline?  

MG: Detective Kate Francis aka Frankie works in a male dominated workplace in  nineteen eighties Ireland. Sexism is rife. In the very first paragraph, sergeant Brannigan, ruminates:

‘To think, godammit, the reinforcements they’re sending from the city, includes a woman. A battle-axe, no doubt, built like a barn.’

So from very early on, we see Frankie dealing with the hostility of Brannigan, while at the same time fending off the unwanted attentions of her married boss, and trying to placate her boyfriend, resentful at her long hours at work. As she struggles to advance the investigation, these personal challenges deepen. Her boyfriend asks her: What do you want out of life? To be the best sleuth? To settle down and become a mother? Frankie is conflicted. She doesn’t see why she can’t do both. When she’s left to solve the case on her own, we see Frankie’s professional confidence grow, as she stands up to the corrupt sergeant and follows her own instinct for finding the killer. Alongside this confidence comes an insight into how she will address the apparent contradictions in her life. In the end we see a changed Frankie, one who has grown personally over the course of solving the murder, and who is grounded and at peace with herself.

SG:  Limbo is set in 1989 in Donegal, with the stunning landscape key to both the mystery and the reading experience. Your descriptions are beautiful and even more impactful as they are set against the investigation of two murdered babies, from Port Arthur Strand, Gweedore to Errigal Mountain and the River Claddy is “the warm colour of tea”, “On the horizon, Frankie can see the islands floating in the Atlantic, surrounded by thousands of foaming white horses fringing the waves: Gola, Inishmaan, Inisheer.” How important was the setting to the novel and to the series?

MG: I spent most summers as a child in Gweedore in Donegal, where my parents grew up. My father taught in Ranafast, and the family simply decamped to the Gaeltacht for July and August. So many images from childhood mean Gweedore to me: Errigal mountain, salmon fishing, snuff, the bitter winter I spent there with its howling storms; sea and sand and picnics on the strand. Summer seemed to go on forever back then and we spent much of it in one or other of the three glorious beaches, including Port Arthur, which features prominently in the novel. I was fascinated with juxtaposing a horrible crime like the murder of a baby against a backdrop of such exquisite beauty. The idea for the novel came from an assignment at a workshop to write a 300-wordpitch for a crime thriller. The writer,  John Fowles, once said that he usually started with a powerful image, and then tried to work out what the story behind it was and how it developed, The French Lieutenant’s Woman being the most obvious example. The image of the mysterious woman at the coast staring out to sea is not so far away from the image of a baby found on the beach. So my novel opens with the most awful crime imaginable. Just as south eastern Sicily is like a character in Andrea Camilleri’s Montelbano thrillers, I wanted Gweedore to feature almost as a character in the story, with the mountain Errigal a touchstone for everything.

SG: Lovely to hear your authorial intention, Maureen, and I do think that comes through to the reader. Over the course of the investigation, Frankie realises how the patriarchal systems of power are skewed towards men, from the hospitals – early on in Limbo a matron exclaims, as if there were no men involved in procreation “these young girls, you’d feel so sorry for them” – to the force which employs her as a detective – she figures out which battles to fight with Brannigan, how to negotiate her desire with Moran (“there’ll be none of that she tells herself”) and her future, whatever that might be, with Rory. Can you talk about your exploration of gender in the Ireland of 1989?

MG: The action takes place in 1989, ten years after the pope’s visit, an era when people’s mindset had not changed much at all from the 50’s and 60’s. I wanted to explore what we were like as an nation back then, and ultimately what that led to: women vilified for no greater crime than becoming pregnant. At one point the protagonist, Frankie, asks: “Do we not value pregnancy and birth in this country?” So you could say my focus was the treatment of women in late 20th century Ireland. When it came to naming my female protagonist, I had to think long and hard. My main reason for giving my female character a name that is somewhat androgynous was because I didn’t want her to be referred to by her first name while all the men in Limbo were referred to by their surnames – Moran, Brannigan, O’Toole etc. I felt that would have rendered her somewhat inferior, in a situation where she is already facing prejudice. But neither did I want to distance her from the reader. So I set about finding a surname that sounded like a first name. Even though there are female Frankie’s, there is the intentional false assumption that Frankie is a male name. At the very least it is gender neutral, androgynous. My intention was to give my protagonist a modicum of gravitas in a male world.

SG: And Frankie as a name for this character works so well. So, part of Frankie’s initial investigations lead her to Umfin Island to meet with members of followers of the Brigid, Goddess of Fertility. She finds

“she’s conflicted. On the one hand, she’s impressed with the back-to-nature self-sufficient element of the lifestyle she’s observed….on the other, at the very least there was a level of violence in the ritual she’s just witnessed that was disturbing.”

In a way, this experience also sums up Frankie’s view of Irish society and politics, and the power of the Catholic Church. It appears to be one thing but actually – including and especially figures in authority – is another. Can you talk about how these themes influenced the story line (or was it vice-versa?).

MG: What was an eye-opener for me when I started to write Limbo, was that the structure of the crime novel – you could say its limitation – allowed me to explore social issues, something dear to my heart. The very nature of the genre frees up the imagination. The two underlying themes I had in mind when starting the novel, was the power of the Catholic Church in Irish society and the subordinate position of women. Someone once coined the phrase ‘the Catholic Taliban’, to describe the hold the Catholic Church had on the lives of women in Ireland all down the century since independence. Throughout the thirties, forties and fifties, and even up to the eighties women’s bodies were a battleground. I wanted to show how the Catholic Church dominated the whole narrative, how it was woven into the very fabric of society, and for this to inform the tone of Limbo. The backdrop to the story is a misogynistic state hand in glove with a powerful church and its impact on women. But I was conscious too that exploring social context should not mean long passages of exposition. The bottom line is that the novel has to be entertaining – people want to know what happens next.  Crime writing, like all fictional writing, is best done through scene setting, dialogue, believable characterisation. Or as the late great John McGahern would say, told slant.  

SG: Yes indeed – ‘told slant’ – a lesson in writing fiction! Lastly, in Limbo, as in our history, those who don’t confirm to prescribed behaviours and identities are locked up or hide themselves away – claiming their voice as their own by not speaking, for example Hannah. Part of what Frankie has to do is to listen to what is behind the stories that people tell, see what is beyond the land and within the houses. In this way, as Frankie “feels resentful at how the Church has commandeered all the major events in people’s lives”, Limbo is as much about agency and power as it about a thrilling story. Was this your intention?  

MG: Limbo is very much about the struggle women have to gain autonomy within the suffocating limitations imposed on them. Hannah’s response to the violent strictures visited on her is to choose not to speak, to metaphorically lock herself away. Her daughter Sarah, in contrast, determinedly manages to rise above her awful experiences and leaves Ireland to embrace a new life. Frankie addresses head-on the challenges she faces and in so doing gains insight into her own personal predicament and how to resolve it. The novel is very much about agency and power. It charts both the tragic predicament of the women who are crushed by their oppression, but also the empowerment and joy of the women who transcend it.

SG: To finish up, Maureen, some fun questions

  • Sandy or Stony Beach?  Sandy. Definitely not stony – I value my ankles!
  • Tea or Coffee? Mostly tea. But when my daughter – who now lives in Spain – visits, I bring her to Tigh Neachtain in Galway, which serves an excellent coffee.
  • Music or quiet when writing? I love music but not when I’m writing. I like total silence when I’m writing.
  • What’s next on your reading pile? I’m re-reading of Lajos Egri’s superb The Art of Dramatic Writing as research for Book 2, and for leisure reading I’ve started Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, which I’m enjoying very much.
  • What are you working on or thinking about now? Now that the launch of Limbo is behind me, I’m picking up where I left off on Book 2 in early summer. The book’s premise is ‘Misogyny Fuels Femicide’, an idea I’m very engaged with and I can’t wait to get stuck back in.

Thank you, Maureen, for such engaging and thorough answers. I very much look forward to the next two books in the series and to seeing more of Frankie!

Readers can order Limbo here

Author Maureen Gallagher. Photo courtesy of author.

With thanks also to Poolbeg Crimson for the advance copy of Limbo

Writer Interview, Writers Chat, Writers Read, Writing Life

Writers Chat 57: Richard Fulco on “We Are All Together” (Wampus: 2022)

Front cover of We Are All Together showing a black and white sketch of a stage with instruments lined up against a stool, waiting to be played.

SG: Richard, Welcome to my Writers Chat series. Congratulations on your second novel, We Are All Together which comes out this November 2022 with Wampus. Let’s start with the cover. As We Are All Together is so person-centric, I’m curious about the cover which is a black and white sketch of the various instruments (literally) of We Are All Together. What message/s did you want to convey with this, and how much input did you have, working with Wampus, into the cover design?

RF: One reason I love working with Wampus is that its founder and creative director Mark Doyon provides me with ample feedback on everything from marketing to editing. Ultimately, Wampus leaves the decision-making up to its artists, so I am eternally grateful for the creative freedom that I have.

The cover art was created by my brilliant partner, the painter Nan Ring. She and I discussed the concept. I wanted something fairly cynical yet simple. The bare stage: a guitar, amplifier, microphone and stool. But where are the musicians? Nan and I wanted the cover art to start a conversation. We wanted to pose several questions considering the title of the book.

The Beatles have been an enormous presence on me as a writer and on this particular novel. The book’s title is from “I Am the Walrus.” “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.” The title claims, “We are all together” but in fact, the characters are not all together at the beginning of the book. In the United States, we are not united, never was, and yet we are inextricably linked nevertheless. I don’t think the irony will be lost on readers.

In addition, the edges of the image dissolve, indicating the ephemeral nature of life and art. Even as we are here together, we are all slowly leaving this world, which makes the present moment all the more intensely poignant and beautiful.

SG: Thank you for that explanation – it’s interesting to hear the story and conversations behind the cover and title. Leading on from this, it seems that We Are All Together could not have been set in any other era and any other country than the 1960s New York (and other cities).  Was the era – and all the conflicts of national and individual identity – what brought you to this story?

RF: Syd Barrett and The Pink Floyd brought me to the story and the recent politics in America provided me with a blueprint.

It began as a rock and roll novel about a young musician so desperate to make it that he’s willing to do anything, even betray his best friend. I drew upon my experiences as a desperate musician, living the life of a starving artist, doubting my abilities, and unwilling to face the truth about my artistic pursuits.

For several years, I wrote about music on my blog, Riffraf. I had the opportunity to interview the great rock photographer Mick Rock who had taken some of the most iconic photos in rock and roll: David Bowie and Mick Ronson, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and of course Syd Barrett. Syd’s story was a compelling yet strange one, and Mr. Rock shared his experiences with Syd that really piqued my interest. At the height of his musical powers, Syd just checked out. Was he an acid casualty? Was it mental illness? Or did he no longer wish to make music with the band he formed?

David Gilmour said, “Syd’s story is a sad story, romanticized by people who don’t know anything about it. They’ve made it fashionable, but it’s just not that way.” I am by no means trying to romanticize Syd’s story. Although I’ve included some of Pink Floyd’s mythology and lore. My novel resembled Syd’s story in the beginning, but eventually morphed into something more socio-political than I had anticipated. I owe a great debt to the American politics of the past decade.

SG: I thought you captured the public/private self well alright. Stephen is constantly trying to please those around him – on stage, at parties and even when he is supposed to be engrossed in his music he steps out of his reality to remember, for example, seeing the Beatles on TV. Stephen’s journey – and that of the reader – is about using others to find or create himself. Would you class this novel as a coming-of-age tale, a bildungsroman? Or is it more of a morality tale about vanity? Or does it belong to a genre at all?

RF: Whereas my first book, THERE IS NO END TO THIS SLOPE, is a coming-of-middle-age novel, this one is a more traditional bildungsroman. The novel’s protagonist, Stephen Cane, is a naive twenty-one-year old narcissist who is wrestling with his parents’ mixed messages, dreams, vocation and the belief that he is not a truly great man.

Stephen and his partner and friend, Dylan John, are young men on their own individual psychological, spiritual and moral journeys. Dylan travels in one direction as a civil rights activist, while Stephen, on a separate path, pursues his love for rock and roll. WE ARE ALL TOGETHER is also a buddy novel and a road novel. There’s even a touch of historical fiction and perhaps some thriller/mystery elements tossed in for good measure.

I suppose there are moral questions posed, but I don’t think of the novel as a morality play. At what lengths would you go to gain success? What role does the artist play in this world? Does the world need another rock star? Now that I think about it, Dylan is kind of like Everyman who is trying to justify his time on the earth.

SG: Yes, there is a touch of Dylan as the seer, and also the Everyman. While We Are All Together is, on a top level, an exploration of the lure of fame, and perhaps a commentary on a capitalist society – “My old man had been instructing me ever since I was a boy that whenever money was involved, I should seize the opportunity, no matter who gets shredded in the process, even if that person ultimately turns out to be me….” – it also sets its gaze at parent/child relationships in the formation of “character”, and “reinvention”. Early in the novel, we’re told:

“Some mothers inspire their children to aspire to greatness, to reach for the stars, like Arthur’s mother. But my mother, who was kind of musical in her own way, singing in the church choir and all, encouraged me to play it safe…the world ‘dream’ just wasn’t in her vocabulary.”

To what extent do you think Stephen’s strict religious moral upbringing with a focus on money making, is related to his constant misjudging what is expected of him in the relationships he tries to forge? I’m thinking here of the complex relationship with Emily, and then later with her as Gentle Wind (who, perhaps accurately, claims he has “never loved anyone” in his life).

RF: I’m not sure that Stephen misjudges Emily (also known as Gentle Wind). He witnesses her prejudice and bigotry on their first night together when she makes an anti-semitic remark. I think Stephen chooses to overlook Emily’s questionable, reprehensible behavior because she’s not only beautiful, but she’s also a terrific artist. He’s a young, lonely loser who just had his heart broken and is desperate in both art and love. He’s seeking the love, attention and approval that his parents failed to provide. Stephen is truly impressed with Emily’s natural talent. Wondering if he possesses greatness himself, Stephen wants to be near greatness, hoping that maybe some of Emily’s will rub off on him.

SG: I was thinking not that he misjudges her but that he misjudges the relationship. This desire to be near greatness, as you say, is also why he has John as a friend. You make great use of description, colour, and visuals to capture the clothes, atmosphere and attitudes of 1967, or the Summer of Love. From Emily’s “ratty dungarees with holes in both knees”, “yellow button down with a wide collar and large bright silver buttons”, to the “purple stairs” which Stephen and Emily descend, and a projection of a montage of “films of suburban families opening presents in front of a Christmas tree, psychedelic mushroom swirls, the conflict that was heating up in Vietnam, and police officers beating negroes with Billy clubs.” Or later the band is

“decked out in black and wearing dark shades… stunning female back-up singer, a blonde mannequin in a white leisure suit and black scarf”.

It strikes me that We Are All Together is very filmic. Could you see it as a film – or a play, given your playwriting background?

RF: I never envisioned this book as a play. Though I do think there is some fairly decent dialogue within. When I write a play, I accept the stage as my biggest challenge. I love writing dialogue, but I also consider ways to tell my story visually? Writing a novel is quite different. And for this book I attempted to write a more traditional, linear tale, but I wanted to go really big with its visuals. Let’s include a chapter with Andy Warhol and the Factory. Why not take a trip across America? I like Pete Townshend, so let’s make him a character. My vision was broad and ranging. I saw the narrative quite clearly. The Sixties provided me with color, extraordinary political events, and powerful images, so I’ve tried my best to preserve them in prose.

SG: Yes, you’re right about the vision – and it’s quite a journey you bring the reader on. We Are All Together also explores the expanding, changing world of music (and touches on the art and film world with Warhol making multiple appearances) in the 1960s, and shows the reader – through Stephen – how closely it was linked to political change. How important was it for you to track socio-political change and in doing so, echo tensions and polarisation in America of today?

RF: When I embarked on this project, my intention was to recall some of my experiences as a singer in a rock and roll band in the 80s and 90s. I set it during the Summer of Love because I wanted the protagonist to be somewhat of a precursor to punk, someone outside the mainstream. But early on it was clear to me that the character I thought was the book’s protagonist, Dylan John, was really the protagonist’s (Stephen Cane) foil.

The more research I did on the Summer of Love the more I learned about The Long, Hot Summer where more than 150 riots had taken place across America, the most notable rebellions were in Detroit and Newark.

As a white writer, I discovered that there were two narratives in the summer of ‘67. The white narrative of The Summer of Love – peace, love, and understanding, is more mainstream, while the black narrative of racial injustice, discord and the quest for equality takes a back seat.

I’m ashamed to say that I really didn’t know too much about the Long, Hot Summer until I began writing this novel. The more I wrote, the more invested I had become. Dylan John questions his role in society and decides to join the fight for civil rights. He doesn’t think the world needs another rock star. He believes the world needs soldiers in the fight for justice.

I created two narratives that parallel the socio-political events of the time. There is Stephen Cane’s story – The Summer of Love – and then there’s Dylan John’s story, The Long, Hot Summer. It was a very conscious dichotomy. While I was writing the book, America was in turmoil, mimicking the events of 1967. WE ARE ALL TOGETHER is set during the Summer of 1967, but I’m really commenting on present day America.

SG: That duality and commentary comes across really strongly, Richard. It really speaks of how our own situation as writers and the when/where we are writing from seems into our narratives. Stephen and Dylan John/Arthur Devane are polarised characters in this respect and your use of dialogue worked well in this respect. Can you talk about the relationship between Dylan John and Stephen Cane and how this asks questions about the role of the artist in society – is it to provoke? Create change? Make money? Do something “meaningful”, as Dylan says?

RF: We Are All Together addresses a nation struggling with its mythological past and the effects it has had on the integrity of the individual. Does the artist owe the world anything? Does the ailing world need another rock star? The role of the artist is to comment on the world. The artist seeks truth. The artist tries to make sense of this perplexing world. If the art is truthful it might offer a fresh point of view for the audience (or reader).

SG: Questions that are timeless. But was it difficult to incorporate real musicians and bands (The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Mamas and Papas etc) into the fictional world of We Are All Together whilst maintaining the integrity of Stephen’s story?

RF: It was actually quite fun. I particularly enjoyed writing about George Harrison. I wanted to write about the time George was in Haight-Ashbury and how disappointed he was in the flower power counterculture. And there is Stephen Cane in the midst of it all, pleading with George to listen to the only song he has ever written.

The infamous story is that George and his wife Patti visited the Haight on August 8, 1967, but were really turned off by the culture. In his biography Dark Horse, Harrison said, “Somehow I expected them to all own their own little shops. I expected them all to be nice and clean and friendly and happy.” Instead, he said, he found the hippies “hideous, spotty little teenagers.”

SG: Again, it’s that duality – perception/ expectation/ reality. Part of Stephen’s journey is also experimenting with various class A drugs, especially heroin “his papa” which eases his guilt at

“Failing to protect my mother when my father went to town on her with his black belt and wide silver buckle. Breaking up Ghost Spider. Replacing Dylan in Red Afternoon. Sleeping with my best friend’s wife”.

There are times when our sympathy for Stephen wanes. But you pull us back with humour and bizarre horror, such as The Jolly Jokesters on their magic bus, Furthermore which bring both reader and Stephen out of his self-obsession and back into the reality of a divided society. Can you comment on the humour in the novel?

RF: I wouldn’t say WE ARE ALL TOGETHER is a particularly hilarious novel. One might find the hapless Stephen Cane somewhat amusing. Certainly Tony Campbell, the writer and entrepreneur, might make one smile. Neal Cassady has his moments too. Though even in the dark there is light. Mark Twain said, “The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.” Whenever I’m writing I search for the humor in the tragic. I’ve written a number of tragicomedy one-act plays, and I approach all of my writing with some levity. You can’t write from inside a casket all the time, right?

SG: Exactly! So, lastly, Richard, let’s conclude our Writers Chat session with some fun questions:

  • If you could be a character in your novel, who would it be? Clementine. She is a poet, a lover, a traveller, a wandering spirit, an adventurer, a good friend.
  • What song from We Are All Together would be its soundtrack? “Arnold Layne” by Pink Floyd influenced the psychedelic songs written by Dylan John, Red Afternoon and even Stephen Cane’s one song.
  • Silence or noise when writing? Noise while writing. Silence while editing.
  • Favourite band doing the circuit today? Wilco.
  • What is the most surprising read you’ve had this year? The Talented Mr. Ripley and Oh William! 
Photograph of smiling Richard Fulco wearing black-rimmed glasses and a navy-blue shirt, against a background of a lake and forests.

Purchase We Are All Together at Barnes and Noble, Amazon or AppleBooks

Learn more about Richard Fulco at Wampus.

With thanks to Richard Fulco and Wampus for an advance copy of We Are All Together.

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)

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