Books On My Bedside Table: What Is Patrick Freyne Reading?

Writer Patrick Freyne on the books he’s reading now …

Patrick Freyne is a features writer at The Irish Times and author of the essay collection, OK, Let’s Do Your Stupid Idea. His debut novel, Experts in a Dying Field, is out on June 11.

“My bedside table collection of reading material isn’t really a neat pile. It’s more a heap. It’s old Sunday newspapers mixed with books with broken spines and, also, a sleep apnoea machine. I learned from my wife, Anna Carey, author of the excellent Love Scene, that the best way to read a lot is to read several books at once. So it’s not so just a “to-be-read heap” it’s also an “already read heap” (kept there for sentimental value) and an “in the process of being read heap” and, sometimes, towards the bottom there is a tragically forgotten book looking forlorn.

“I recently read a trio of brilliant writers, who all, in their own way, reckon with the legacy of the Troubles: Prestige Drama by Seamas O’Reilly is a dark funny polyphonic novel about a “prestige drama” being made in his hometown of Derry. The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine is a similarly rich and many voiced story about a young woman who is assaulted and the various people in the community who respond with support, cover-up and gossip.

“Few and Far Between is Jan Carson’s eerie, moving tale of fictional islands on Lough Neagh where refugees from the Troubles went to forget.

“I also read Tessa Hadley’s novella The Party in an afternoon recently (I love short books). Her writing is so crisp and clear and beautiful. My unfinished pile includes Willy Vlautin’s The Left and the Lucky (I already know I’ll love it) and Ulysses, a book by some guy called James Joyce. I read it in college and I am reapproaching it as a man in middle age. You know something? It’s quite good.”