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What would you do if you loved somebody so much that you were driven to destroy them? Two generations of the Slane family must answer this question, tossed about on the turmoil of one war after another, pursued by the dark power of the Lightning Bird. Jimmy and Maureen fight with the British Army in the Boer war, but evil follows them home from the killing fields of Ladysmith.

Their son Alex fights the same demon, first in the Royal Hibernian Military School, where he kills another boy, but persuades his friend Finn to take the blame, and later he is mobilised with the British army during the Easter Rising. Finn, meanwhile, fights with the IRB in the GPO along with Alex’s cousin Caer, who has sworn her love to him. Finn is wounded and, when they try to escape, they are nearly killed. Alex rescues them but is labeled a traitor as a result.

The three hide out in bleak west of Ireland, but Alex’s demon draws him into involvement with the IRA, and later, in the heat of the violence, he has an affair with Caer, leaving her pregnant. As the war of independence drowns them in bloodletting, they are forced to come to a realisation of themselves and each other. The ultimate revelation that Alex’s true mother was a Boer woman who died in a concentration camp drives him to discover things about himself and Caer that finally lead him to sacrifice himself to save his lover and child.

I had the pleasure of attending award winning author MJ Hyland’s fiction workshop in the Irish Writers’ Centre at the weekend. She’s a fascinating speaker, the day passed in a flash, even with the water protesters screaming outside.

She went through some great exercises on developing your style through studying other authors as well as knowing yourself. Came away with some interesting thoughts around the characters in my novel and a very long reading list. Two things to particularly recommend: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews and the fiction podcasts on the New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/podcasts, great authors read other stories previously published and explain what’s great about it.

Worth missing the greatest day in the history of six nations rugby? Well, I still have that to watch on the recorder.

Having published Thickened With Blood in the Independent last December, I am now nominated in the Emerging Writers section of the Hennessey Literary Awards. Lesa and I get to go to a posh do in April, excitement and dress choices all round!

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books-arts/emerging-fictionsen-kenny-30072121.html

 

My story Thickened With Blood was in Saturday’s Independent, can also be read online here: http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books-arts/hennessy-new-irish-writing-thickened-with-blood-29855689.html

Delighted to learn that Ciaran Carty of the Irish Independent is going to publish my story Thickened With Blood in his New Irish Writing section this Saturday (21st December). NIW normally appears last Saturday of the month but jumps a week forward on account of Christmas.

I went into RTE last week and recorded my story Snow Can’t Last, and it was subsequently broadcast Monday (was originally Friday, but then Nelson Mandella had the ill consideration to go and die!)

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena/programmes/2013/1209/491851-arena-monday-9-december-2013/?clipid=1374648

 

I had the privilege to be at the launch of Diarmuid O’Chongaile’s first novel, Being Alexander. While I was waiting for the festivities to begin, standing in the Gutter Bookshop, I flicked through a few pages. The power of Diarmuid’s voice reached out to me immediately. It is a voice that rings strongly and consistently through the novel and is a major achievement for a first time writer. It puts me very much in mind of some of the great contemporary American authors like Joseph Heller and John Irving. The story that he tells is less of a journey and more of a sight seeing expedition. He stops and marvels at each little thing, filling in a bit of back story on each character, philosophising on each trivial event while all but ignoring the major plot turns, remembering fondly a childhood lost but grown sacred with memory.

There is a scene where Alexander has acquired a top of the range BMW; he climbs in, astonished by the quality of everything about the car. He goes to drive off, is politely informed by the satnav that he is going the wrong way and, still recovering from a very heavy night’s drinking, he vomits down the beautiful dashboard. I thought this was a  metaphor for Alexander as a whole. Privileged, well educated, with a girlfriend and family who care deeply about him, Alexander pretty much vomits on everything that could bring salvation to his life. He turns constantly away from anything good and seeks out whatever is destructive, soulless and empty.

He is not, though, a pitiful or malicious character, he is simply cast adrift in a vacuum lacking spirituality or values, itself a metaphor for the worst days of the Celtic Tiger corruption in which he is immersed. He watches himself as if from afar, as the reader does also,  curious to see what he will do next, what depravity he will choose to sink to. Despite his deep failings, Alexander is a charming host for this sight seeing tour. His looping deviations constantly entertain and amuse, and, as you drop your head in your hands thinking ‘what the hell is he at now’, you are already forgiving him and vainly hoping that he will find some direction and some happiness.

It’s a first novel, it certainly won’t be Diarmuid’s last given the fantastic prose and that voice.

Back in April, my story Snow Can’t Last was read out on the Arena program on RTE as part of Dave Lordan’s New Planet Cabaret series. Now the best stories plus some commissioned stories are appearing in a New Island book, to be launched Friday in the Gutter Bookshop. Looking forward to it.

The Irish Times have been running a series of stories based around the general subject of the events of the last five years, recession, property crash, bank guarantee etc, under the title Legends of the Fall. It has featured such luminaries of the Irish literature scene as Ann Enright, Colm Tobin etc.

They had an open competition to submit a story to feature as the last in the series in this weekend’s paper. I am delighted to find that my story Vicious Circular has been shortlisted in a group of ten for the competition, and appear on the Irish Times website today here

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/vicious-circular-by-kieran-marsh-1.1539529