When GAVIN CORBETT lost his job as a newspaper subeditor, he pursued his TRUE PASSION, eventually writing two award-winning books that have garnered the attention of EMMA DONOGHUE … He tells SOPHIE GRENHAM about working in OSCAR WILDE‘s old attic and long days spent wandering in Dublin …
It was when former newspaper subeditor Gavin Corbett found himself out of a job that good fortune came his way. A decade after dipping his feet into the water with Innocence (Pocket, 2003), it was his second book This is the Way (Fourth Estate, 2013) that made waves when Gavin signed with a London agent. It won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year.
Since then, Gavin has become an important member of Irish fiction’s new club of stars, a reputation sealed with his most recent offering Green Glowing Skull (Fourth Estate, 2015).
Literary powerhouse Emma Donoghue has called it “A troubling, mysterious, demanding and beautiful book, narrated in a voice unlike any I have encountered in fiction. Corbett knows what he’s doing: every sentence throbs with power.”
Gavin is the current Irish Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin.
On home
I live in Phibsborough, Dublin, with my wife. My father grew up here, in Great Western Square, and we live just off Dorset Street. It’s essentially a 19th century neighbourhood, packed with grand and ornate buildings, but it’s been spoiled by nasty landlords and fly-tippers. Every second premises is vacant, and every other one is a charity shop, although I like the charity shops. I recently picked up, for a couple of euro, a bunch of vinyl albums by the truly evil Reverend William McCrea, some of them autographed. Stuff like that reminds me why I love Phibsborough, because if a bunch of William McCrea albums turned up in a charity shop in Stoneybatter or Rathmines, they’d be swooped on in seconds by the hipsters.
I don’t socialise in the area, as I’m only a 20-minute walk from the centre of Dublin. I spend a lot of time idling in Simon’s Place café. I’ll always bump into someone I know there. Grogan’s, the Shakespeare, Corrigan’s of Rathmines and – further out of town – Byrne’s of Galloping Green are my favourite pubs.
On creating
I used to write at home, but recently I’ve had to clear my study, insert a Moses basket, and take down a scary picture of Mark E Smith of The Fall, as we have a baby on the way.
I’m the current Irish Writer Fellow at Trinity College, and my office is in the attic of the house where Oscar Wilde was born. A few weeks ago I went rooting about in the eaves, joking to myself that I’d find a portrait of Dorian Gray – and what did I discover? A box with about 200 reels of used but undeveloped 35mm photographic film in it. I must hand it over to TCD’s archivist before my stint is up.
On bookshops
Hodges Figgis is my favourite local bookshop. It’s got a decent selection and the staff are great. It’s also a pleasant place to linger because the lighting isn’t too glaring, as in some of the other bookshops around town. I’ve been buying books there all my life. Nothing in the world beats the Strand in New York, though. I love the sixties and seventies hardback editions they have on their shelves.
A few years ago in the Irish Times, Manchan Magan wrote of the need for a Dublin version of Paris’s Shakespeare & Co – a bookshop, event space, guesthouse, and general hub for the city’s literary scene all rolled into one. I’ve never forgotten that article. He made a great case. I fantasise often about the ideal bookshop. There are enough vacant and beautiful buildings around the capital that would work well for such a purpose.
On literature
Maurice Craig’s Dublin 1660-1860 has been a constant companion from the time I started to read. It’s an architectural history of the city, but written like a prose poem, and it’s quite eccentric – it begins with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. He famously compares Broadstone Station to “the monstrous silences of Karnak or Luxor”, which is brilliant.
The book that’s had the most profound effect on me as a writer though is probably Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker. It was such an important lesson in voice. It’s one of those novels that, within a couple of sentences, energises you to write yourself.
On down time
I feel most relaxed when I’m wandering around Dublin. If I don’t have one aimless ramble about the city each week, taking photos and playing fantasy town-planning, then my working week is incomplete. I have great plans for Dublin, if only someone would allow me to execute them. People who write and care about cities are my heroes – people such as Jane Jacobs, Iain Sinclair, Teju Cole and, closer to home, Paul Kearns, Christine Casey, Karl Whitney and Frank McDonald. I can’t be doing with this ‘Dublin is a small city’ nonsense. The folks who say that are just relaying a cliché, or never go further west than Wexford Street. Dublin is a vast labyrinth. I don’t mean that figuratively – Dublin’s footprint is enormous compared to most European cities.
Outside of Dublin, London is where I feel most at home. I potter about there and get lost in its dingiest record shops. I’ve been collecting a lot of music by mentally ill people recently. I prefer that to books right now. Off-key music is unfiltered honesty, whereas everything that’s written, no matter how honest you intend it to be, becomes phony as soon as it lands on the page. I’d rather read an insane and passionate blog than most of the cautious and derivative rubbish that’s touted as ‘literary fiction’ nowadays.
On New York City
I feel a bit of a fraud talking about New York. I wasn’t there for long – only a year – but I was there when I signed my book deal, so all the bios said I lived in New York. And because most of them didn’t get updated, some people think I’m still there. I really got value out of it, though. As with Dublin, I walked everywhere in New York. I miss my local diner, the Three Star Coffee Shop. That place was as New York as it got – a little piece of Americana – though sadly it’s since closed. I used to write a lot in the Hungarian Pastry Shop, which wasn’t the chichi place it sounds. It was up near Columbia University and full of students, but importantly it didn’t have wifi and did a great cherry strudel. When I wasn’t browsing books in the Strand, I was looking for them in Westsider Books, which was like a mini-Strand a few blocks from me.
I can’t imagine living in New York or anywhere in the States again, because there are no public services in the US. You get nothing for your taxes. If Bernie Sanders became president there might be a chance of me going back, but he won’t. It’s a disgracefully cruel country, that’s only so powerful because it neglects its citizens, and it’ll remain that way for a long time. The publishing industry in the US is full of uptight fools and bullshitters as well, so that’s another reason to never return.
This is the Way (€14.20) and Green Glowing Skull (€20.55) are available from bookshops nationwide.
Sophie Grenham
This article appeared in a previous issue, for more features like this, don’t miss our April issue, out Thursday April 7.
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