The author of 30 novels – who introduced a fresh new voice about modern Irish women – on home, roots, writing and success …
Her latest novel returns to the City Girl world more than 25 years later.
ON HOME I moved to Clontarf 20 years ago so I would probably still be considered a blow-in. I love being so close to the sea. I have a very serene, mature, shrub-filled back garden, where I can wind down after a long day on the computer.
ON ROOTS I grew up in Stormanstown Road in Wadelai, Ballygall, before we moved a short distance to Hillcrest Park. I actually named our new estate. Every household was invited to suggest a name. As the estate was at the top of a hill I suggested Hillcrest Park, and it was the name chosen. I went to school in St Pappin’s in Ballymun – long before the flats were built – when it was a country school surrounded by farmland. In the autumn, we picked blackberries from the hedgerows on the way home.
ON MY DESK Although I have an “offcial desk” I rarely write at it. The invention of the laptop changed my writing life forever. I can, and do, write anywhere. My favourite writing “desk” is on the veranda of the mobile home I have in Wicklow. The vista is inspiring – a beautiful 32-acre field in which you see the whole cycle of nature. But whatever desk I’m writing at, they all have one feature – a big mug of tea. As important as the laptop itself.
ON WRITING Writing has become as natural to me as breathing. I remember my mother saying to me once, when I was procrastinating and hadn’t begun my next novel, “Would you ever sit down and start your new book, you’re like a clucking hen.” I love being creative, I love knowing that I can bring my readers into another world for a few hours, where they can escape from the pressures of life.
ON SUCCESS When City Girl came out 35 years ago, I had no idea that I would be lucky enough to sell millions of books and have them translated into other languages. I would have been gobsmacked to know I would do book tours around the UK, be flown first-class to publishing conferences in fabulous hotels in Greece, Malta, Spain, Amsterdam, and have publishing parties in the Ritz, dine in San Lorenzo (Princess Diana’s favourite London restaurant) seated at a table next to Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and have the most memorable food I’ve ever eaten, cooked by Gordon Ramsey. Meeting agents in New York, and headlining an event and being interviewed in LA would have been even more surreal to me, and I would surely have felt I was dreaming. Meeting Maeve Binchy, and having her give me her agent’s name would have been utterly unimaginable. Writing this now I still can’t believe it all happened.
City Girls Forever (Simon&Schuster, €14.99) is out now.
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