On family, career and past-times …
John Connolly is the award-winning author of the supernatural-thriller Charlie Parker books, as well as books for young readers, and a novel based on the later years of actor and comedian Stan Laurel. He was born and raised in Dublin, where he lives with his wife, Jenny.
How would you describe your parents? My mother was a housewife and would do substitute teaching in primary schools, so my love of books came from her. She hauled me up to Dolphin’s Barn Library at an early age. My father was of a generation that had a lot of the hope knocked out of them. He seemed like a very old man in his late thirties, when I was born, and I’m about to be slightly older than he was when he died. He was a public servant, working for Dublin Corporation. The dream then was to find a job you couldn’t be fired from and retire at 65 with your pension. Instead he died in the job. That was a very salutary lesson to me.
You have talked about dealing with OCD as a teenager. How do you look back at that now? A lot of it is to do with the sense that you and the people around you are vulnerable. It’s a way of giving yourself the illusion of control. You have routines that you put in place to create that illusion but it can be very debilitating. The worst was when I was 16, then it sort of fell away but I think you carry elements of it through life. I probably transferred it into not being able to leave things unfinished, which is useful for a writer.
Did your school make a big impact on your life? Probably very negatively. I went to Synge Street and it was an education designed for architects and engineers, really. There wasn’t any music, or arts. There was no grass. It was a grim, functional education and it wasn’t the fault of the teachers. I was probably the wrong peg.
Were you a sporty kid? No. I’m not a team person at all. When I left school, I became very interested in going to the gym and committed to that as something I could do by myself with set goals.
Did college suit you better than school? I worked for a few years in Dublin Corporation before I went to university, and then I saw myself going down the path of my father, so I cashed in my pension when I was about 20 and left. Dad was not happy. He died when I was in college.
What did you think you’d grow up to be? A vet. I read too many James Herriot books and fell in love with the romance of the Yorkshire Dales. Then I realised that the thing you like doing is the thing you’re slightly better at than the person next to you, because you’re more inclined to put the time into it. I’d always written, so I thought I’d be a journalist.
“I wasn’t a natural journalist. I didn’t love moving on to the next thing all the time. That aspect just made me nervous. So I ended up as a nervous news journalist.”
Did you enjoy being a journalist? I did, with reservations. I looked around and there were people who were just better journalists, so I went off and finished my first book.
Do you read other crime fiction? Not as much as I used to. After a certain point, it’s a little bit like a magician looking at magic tricks.
Your books are set in the US and you have a house in Maine. Did you ever think of a permanent move to the US? No, but I don’t see myself being carried feet first out of Ireland. My wife is South African, one of our sons and grandchild is over there, so at some point I could see us relocating. The one thing is that I don’t like the heat. I’m a cold, winter, rain person. So I’d probably make sure my books were published in the South African summer, so I could get away from it.
You’d like people to regard you as … Friendly but not your friend.
Your friendships are, for the most part … Male and few.
You came to fatherhood relatively late when your wife and two sons moved here from South Africa, did you adapt easily to that? They were about twelve and eight then, and I went from my lovely bachelor existence to having all these people trooping around the house, making noise. It took me a long time to adjust. I hope I did it reasonably well.
And now you have an empty nest. How is that second adjustment? I quite like the quiet. I miss them, don’t get me wrong, but I was so used to living by myself and working in silence that it’s fine. But one is in South Africa and the other is doing his PhD in Paris, so it’s a great excuse to travel.
Your most physically attractive feature, in your opinion … An ability to stay quiet.
Your style signifier is … A little Byzantine cross. They wear out because I rub at them with my fingers so often. But they’re quite rare now and you have to look out for them at auctions.
You buy your clothes when … They’re on sale. “Never pay ticket,” that’s my motto.
Your favourite shoes are … A pair of shiny boots.
You most recently read … Steely Dan’s Aja by Don Breithaupt. I also just read Joan Didion’s White Album. I thought, “There’s somebody who’s just so much better”.
You most recently listened to … An episode of the Word in Your Ear podcast about the Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls” album, which is 40 years old.
What is a holiday you’d like to repeat? We took the kids to Peru some years ago and it was just lovely, the four of us rambling around and climbing up on ruins and things. I’ll be 60 in a couple of years, and we might try and do something like that again but I’m not sure you can with a small grandchild in tow.
What would your perfect weekend include? Time spent watching an old western with the dogs, dinner with Jenny, preferably out, but I’d also be perfectly happy at the kitchen table and then watching something like MasterChef. When I was younger, I liked all the travelling for the books, but now, I can think of nothing I’d rather do than be at home with my wife, and, if the kids are around, them too.
A River Red with Blood, A Charlie Parker Thriller, is out now.
