I had an interview with Glenn Patterson published in the Irish Examiner last week. It began a lot like this:
Born in Belfast in 1961, Glenn Patterson grew up through the Troubles, when virtually everything anyone ever heard about Northern Ireland was violence, bombs and sectarian strife. His latest novel, THE REST JUST FOLLOWS (Faber), begins in the early 1970s and spans almost four decades, but for an author who says he writes ‘in the spaces in-between’, it is by no means a ‘Troubles novel’. “What I really wanted to do with this book was to take a group of people and follow them from their pre-teens through to their early middle-age,” says Glenn when we sit down in Dublin’s Brooks Hotel. “They were going to have to live through a whole load of other stuff that I’d lived through, but also that the whole city of Belfast went through as well. Some of that has to do with the economy, some of it has to do with the politics and the Troubles – but it’s all just the stuff of the world that they all have to live through and deal with.” While the Troubles serves as a muted backdrop to the story, it’s much more a celebratory tale of how three teenagers – Maxine, Craig and St. John – grow up making the same kinds of mistakes and experiencing the same kinds of joy as kids in cities all over the world. Glenn mentions David Holmes, the Belfast-born DJ, whom he interviewed for a TV documentary a couple of years ago. “We were talking about growing up in Belfast – for him it would have been the 1980s and into the ’90s, when he was starting to DJ in Belfast. And he said that he was really happy that his children didn’t have to grow up in what he grew up in. But then he paused and he said, ‘But I’m really glad that I did.’ I think it’s very hard to regret your own teenage years. So much of who we are has to do with what happened to us at that age that it doesn’t really matter what was going on in the public domain. That’s your only chance to be that age.”
Off with me yesterday to Belfast to interview James Ellroy, who’s on the circuit promoting BLOOD’S A ROVER, and a marvellous day it was too. Mr James Ellroy was charm personified, an elegant, erudite and self-effacing interviewee who also understands the worth of a mutually beneficial stand-out quote or ten. I liked him a lot, which was nice, because it’s not always a good thing to meet your heroes, and I think Ellroy is one of the best writers on the planet. Hence the irrepressibly smug demeanour of yours truly above, although Mr James Ellroy doesn’t seem to be enjoying the occasion anywhere as much, despite his protests of ‘Man, I’m digging it,’ to the contrary. Oh, and I probably shouldn’t have worn my favourite shirt, the one with the hole in the elbow … Anyway, I bumped into Gerard Brennan of CSNI going into the Waterfront gig where Ellroy was appearing, and he seems a pretty nice bloke too. He’s less evil-looking in person than he is in his blog pic, which was a relief. He had some bad news during the week, by the way, so pop over to CSNI and cheer him up. Afterwards I met Andrew Pepper. I’d met Andrew earlier in the year, at the Bristol CrimeFest, and a nicer guy to while away a couple of coffees you won’t meet in a country mile. He has a new novel coming out next February, the fourth in the Pyke series, called THE DETECTIVE BRANCH. I’ll keep you posted … In between, Stuart Neville interviewed James Ellroy, and did a very fine job (kudos to Dave Torrans of No Alibis, who not only arranged the gig, but provided yours truly with a couple of free tickets). Ellroy did a reading dedicated to (I paraphrase) ‘all you perverts, peepers, panty-sniffers and pimps’ in the audience. I’m pretty sure he uses the same dedication every time he does a reading, and that his performance is similar wherever he goes, because there’s an compelling sense of theatre to what Ellroy does in a live context. He does perform, and he just about stops short of howling at the moon in the process. It’s all very polished and effective and damn near electrifying. Having said all that, it’s worth bearing in mind that the most important part of the performance are the words themselves. What Saturday night taught me is (1) it’s no harm for a writer to get in touch with ancient tradition of bardic poetry when performing a reading; and (2) it’s no harm for a writer to make sure his words are worth hearing out loud if he’s going to stand up on a stage and start reciting them. Off with us then (I was with an old college mate, Big Joe Lindsay, who works for BBC NI, and whom every second person in Belfast seems to know) for a Pimms or two, fetching up in the wee hours in a beautifully ramshackle club run by David Holmes, whom one or two of you might remember as the man on soundtrack duties for Steven Soderbergh’s movie Out of Sight. Given that that soundtrack is one of my all-time faves, it was nice that Big Joe (naturally) knew David Holmes, and made the intros. Big Joe plays some tunes on BBC NI himself, by the way, which is well worth checking out ... The evening ended shortly after I started waving my mobile phone around and showing pictures of the Princess Lilyput, which is always a sign that I’ve had one Pimms too many. Sunday morning I got up and read my review of James Ellroy’s BLOOD’S A ROVER, which I loved (the novel, not the review). I wrote the review two days after finishing the novel, though, and at this stage (three weeks on) I think it’s an even better novel than I gave it credit for – more subtle than I appreciated at the time, I think, and a more elegant, enduring work than either of the ‘Underworld USA’ books that preceded it. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s my two cents … Finally, here’s David Holmes’ ‘Rip Rip’ from the Out of Sight soundtrack. “Tighten up yo panties, boy …” Roll it there, Collette …
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.
