Tuesday, December 11, 2007

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 1,594: Felicity McCall

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
THE BIG SLEEP / Raymond Chandler. Great novel, iconic B/W film.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
My 17-year-old daughter Aoife’s collection. HOW I LIVE NOW / Meg Rosoff is brilliantly original.
Most satisfying writing moment?
Seeing a book of mine displayed in the same window as a seminal work by my journalist hero, Robert Fisk.
The best Irish crime novel is …?
THE BOOK OF EVIDENCE / John Banville, and I loved the combination of readability and fine writing in FAREWELL TO THE FLESH / Gemma O’Connor.
What Irish crime novel would make a great movie?
Brian McGilloway’s Benedict Devlin is made for a long-running television series. I’ve urged him to think in that direction.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Switching mentally between the world of the work-in-progress and the basics of everyday life, during the intensive writing stage.
The pitch for your next novel is …?
A mother’s legal battle against a judgment-by-morals to win back custody of her daughters after she’s cleared of assaulting her infant. And the solicitor who fought her case to the highest court in the jurisdiction, and won – making legal history. Based on real-life events.
Who are you reading right now?
Alice MacDermott, archive news material for an inquest this week, and a collection of scripts from emerging playwrights. With Eoin McNamee’s 12:23 PARIS saved for Christmas.
The three best words to describe your own writing are …?
Intense, perceptive, cynical. Or maybe that’s me.

Felicity McCall’s FINDING LAUREN is published by the Guildhall Press.

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Declan Burke has published a number of novels, the most recent of which is ABSOLUTE ZERO COOL. As a journalist and critic, he writes and broadcasts on books and film for a variety of media outlets, including the Irish Times, RTE, the Irish Examiner and the Sunday Independent. He has an unfortunate habit of speaking about himself in the third person. All views expressed here are his own and are very likely to be contrary.