Kevin McCarthy's Blog, page 3

Lisa Reads Books and Interviews Yours Truly

Hi folks. An interview with yours truly over on Lisareadsbooks blog.  It was really fun to do, actually, forcing me to think back on my early reading habits, my working (or lack thereof) habits etc. It's a great blog. Check it out here:  http://lisareadsbooks.blogspot.ie/2013/11/kevin-mccarthy-interview.html

Also, I'll be among some real greats of Irish crime writing this Saturday at the Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival at Trinity College. Really looking forward to it.  Details here: http://irishcrimefiction.blogspot.ie/

Historical Crime Fiction and Khloe Kardashian...Who Woulda Thunk It?

Had a really interesting morning today, appearing on (Crime Fiction Book of the Year sponsor) TV3's Ireland AM show alongside my new besty, (sic) (bestie?) (how do you spell the stuff you hear your kids say?) Khloe (Chloe?) Kardashian, discussing historical crime fiction.
I got the rock! And I was on telly with Kevin McCarthy! Ok, we didn't discuss historical crime fiction.  And...ok...I didn't exactly appear alongside said Khloe.  Or appear in the same building...or country...or continent.  Actually, I think they recorded her interview in LA or somewhere else I wasn't.  And actually, I didn't discover Khloe was on the show until just now when I was looking for the link...and watching my own interview.  Come on, you have to watch yourself, if only to cringe, really.  You have to!  (Do I really sound like that?) 

All of which is to say, Sinead Dempsey and Anton Savage and all at TV3 were very friendly and relaxed, making me, in turn, slightly more friendly and relaxed than I otherwise might have been.  And I got a muffin to take away in the car on my way into the day job where I suffered unmerciful slagging.  Fair deal!

Here it is:  http://www.tv3.ie/3player/show/184/71869/1/Ireland-AM

Cheers!

Irregulars Shortlisted for Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book of the Year...Author Not-So-Secretly Delighted

Well, folks, I've actually got some real news for once here on the auld blog:   Irregulars has been shortlisted for the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book of the Year 2013 .  I'm really delighted by the news, I have to say, and, if nothing else comes out of it, me and the missus will get to go to the awards banquet and avail of the open bar...  What? No open bar?  Well...

Yours truly and Mariel Deegan,
Sales and Marketing Co-ordinator for New Island Books at the
Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards
Shortlist Announcement--Photo courtesy of Ger Holland, a real pro
 Seriously, it's nice to be nominated, really nice, actually, and it will keep Irregulars on the shelves for awhile longer at least.  It's an honour to be on a list with the 5 other writers.  I've only read one novel by one of the other writers, to my shame, The Holy Thief , William Ryan's first novel in his Kolorev series, set in 1930's Russia. It is a great read and no doubt his shortlisted The Twelfth Department is equally good.  So, again, a real honour.

If you want to vote for Irregulars, here's the link below.  Thanks!


http://www.irishbookawards.ie/2013-shortlist-ireland-am-crime-fiction-book-of-the-year/




Following the announcement of the shortlist at the Bord Gais Energy--see that? a plug for my gas company!--Theatre, it was into a taxi and over to the ILAC Centre Library for my reading in the Crime and the City series put on by Dublin Libraries.  It was hectic, running from one place to the other but the turnout was great at the ILAC and the Q&A was one of the most interesting I've done to date, with questions covering everything from civil war history to writing routines and much else as well.  I'd never done a lunchtime gig before and I really enjoyed this one.  Thanks to Padraig, Susan, Mary, Bernadette and all at Dublin City Libraries for their support!
Reading at the ILAC Centre library in Dublin as part of the Crime in the City series.
(My mate Oscar looking suitably bored!)Nice tie...

Talking History

Hey folks, just a few lines here.  I did a short piece on Newstalk Radio's Talking History programme on the 21st of October.  My interview starts at around 27:30 in the link but listen to the whole show if you get a chance.  It's one of the best history shows around.  Many thanks to Patrick Geoghegan and Susan Cahill--producer on Talking History and host of her own show, Talking Books on Newstalk--for having me on.  Here's the link:
http://www.newstalk.ie/player/listen_back/26/4942/20th_October_2013_-_Talking_History_Part_2
Also, will be reading on Thursday, October 31st at 1pm at ILAC Centre Library as part of the Crime and the City series.  There are details in a post below.  Come along if you're in town and fancy something other than the usual hang-sanger and bottle of red lemonade for lunch!

Gigs and Reels...Some Upcoming Readings

A quick post here re some readings I'll be doing this and next month. Both of them look really interesting for anyone interested in crime fiction...ie there will be many other writers beside myself reading at them! On October 31st I'll be reading at the ILAC Centre library in Dublin as part of the Crime and the City series. Here's the skinny courtesy of Dublin City Libraries: Crime in Dublin: It's Kind of Love/Hate Relationship Crime is serious business in Dublin and we love to read about it. From novels about detectives to accounts of serial killers, from gangster biographies to analysis of social issues, we have an appetite for all of it. 'Crime in the City: Crime and History' is a series of talks and readings looking at the broad issue of crime in Dublin through the ages. This series of events brings together writers from fiction with historians, researchers and bloggers to inform, entertain and promote discussion. Events take place over the five Thursdays in October at 1pm and will consist of lunchtime readings, talks and discussions.

You can find details here:  http://www.dublincity.ie/RecreationandCulture/libraries/library_events/Pages/autumn_2013_city_crime.aspx


Trinity College DublinThe second event is the New York University/Trinity College Irish Crime Fiction Festival, held this year at Trinity College Dublin over the weekend of 22/23 November. I'm really looking forward to this one as I'm on a panel with several writers of historical crime fiction whom I really admire. Also, Irish American crime novelist Michael Connolly is launching his latest novel, The Gods of Guilt , on Saturday evening where he will read and be interviewed by Irish crime novelist John Connolly. (A veritable clatch...coven(?) of Connollys!) Michael Connolly's series of Harry Bosch novels is a real favourite of mine and, now that I think of it, were a real influence on my O'Keefe novels. Really looking forward to it.
Michael Connolly's Harry Bosch novels a real influence on my Sean O'Keefe series

Here's the official bumpf:

Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival
Friday 22 November and Saturday 23 November
Trinity College DublinTrinity College Dublin and New York University are holding a festival devoted to Irish crime fiction, featuring more than a dozen of the most exciting Irish and Irish-American crime novelists. This will be a memorable weekend, devoted to a key genre of contemporary Irish writing, so please make plans to join us.
We're particularly pleased to announce that our weekend will conclude with a major event: for the Irish launch of his newest novel,  The Gods of Guilt  (Orion Books, November 2013), Michael Connelly will be interviewed by John Connolly. After the interview, and questions from the audience, Michael will be signing books, which will be for sale on the evening. 

Books by all of the authors will be available for purchase at the festival throughout the weekend.

Tickets for 'An Evening with Michael Connelly' are €6 (inc. fees), and tickets for Friday evening and Saturday daytime events are free. Tickets for all of the festival events are available here. 

Friday 22 November (free tickets)Long Room Hub, Trinity College
7.00pm-8.30pm: 'A Short Introduction to Crime Fiction: Why We Write It, How We Write It, and Why We Read It', featuring Trinity College alumni. 
Panelists: Jane Casey, John Connolly, Alan Glynn, Declan Hughes, and Eoin McNamee.
Saturday 23 November (free tickets for daytime events)Long Room Hub, Trinity College
10.00am-11.15am: 'Historical Crime Fiction'. Panelists: Kevin McCarthy, Eoin McNamee (chair), Stuart Neville, Peter Quinn, and Michael Russell.
11.30am-12.45am: 'Irish Crime Fiction Abroad'.Panelists: Declan Burke (chair), Jane Casey, John Connolly, Conor Fitzgerald, Alan Glynn, Arlene Hunt.
12.45pm-1.30pm: lunch
1.30-3.30pm: Surprise Film Screening
3.45pm-5pm: 'Crime Fiction and Contemporary Ireland'.Panelists: Paul Charles, Declan Hughes, Gene Kerrigan, Brian McGilloway (chair), Niamh O'Connor, Louise Phillips.
Saturday 23 November, Closing Event6pm (doors open 5.30), Exam Hall, Trinity College (€6 tickets)'An Evening With Michael Connelly'.
John Connolly will be interviewing Michael, who will be signing books, including his newest novel The Gods of Guilt, which will have its Irish launch at this event.
All the deet's, tickets etc. here:  http://irishcrimefiction.blogspot.ie/

HHhH..ell Yeah!

Makes a great doorstop! Or weapon! Or gift!Long time no speak, y'all.  Things fairly quiet on the Irregulars front.  No reviews recently to speak of though I've a gig or two coming up in the near future, more on these anon.

Anyway, with summer over and a proper job--thank God--to return to, I've not been doing too much structured writing.  Just a few bits here and there: notes, half-scenes, snatches of dialogue etc.  I have been doing some reading around the subject of my novel in progress, namely  the Indian Wars of the late 19th Century in Wyoming/Montana etc.  (And yes, I'm aware that calling the rampant, blood-soaked expansionism and treaty breaking of the period 'the Indian Wars' might, in some ways, be injudicious, but I use it as short hand.)

Aside from research, I've also just finished a fantastic book on the very nature of historical fiction: the very post-meta-modern-contemporary-historical 'novel' by Laurent Binet, HHhH.  (Talk about short hand!  The 4 h's an acronym for Himmlers hirn heisst Heydrich or 'Himmler's brain is called Heydrich')  Don't let my description put you off.  This book should be required reading for anyone interested in reading or writing historical fiction.
Post-Meta-Mod-Contempo Historical fiction...and quite brilliant as well HHhH is an (I assume) autobiographical account of Binet's attempt to write a novel about the assassination of Reinhardt Heydrich, Hitler's very own Butcher of Prague, by Czech partisan operatives sent from London.  The story itself I was familiar with, having read a non-fiction account at my parents' house several summers ago.  The ironic--and pleasantly fortuitous--thing is that I never actually finished the account.  It came time to leave before I got as far as the assassination--baggage weight limits mitigated against my taking a hardback in my luggage--and, though I knew the outcome of the action from other accounts etc., I didn't know what became of the assassins, brave, bold, patriots that they were.  (And I mean that without the slightest tint of irony.  Heydrich was as evil as they come, even by Third Reich standards, and his treatment of the Czechs made him deserving of his fate and then some.)  This made reading Binet's HHhH a particular pleasure because he treats the story--the true story-- of the assassination with the reverence it deserves. And as a story it is beyond parallel in terms of suspense, action, treachery, love.  It's a rare book that can make you think about the process of the story being told while maintaining its grip on the story, and the reader. HHhH is a book you can't put down and yet it makes you stop and contemplate the very nature of its telling.

Laurent Binet, author of the brilliant HHhH--if you're an historical novelist or reader of historical fiction, read it.In fact, the whole book--while telling the story of the operation, of Heydrich and Czech and Slovak history, among other things--is a reflection on the historical novelist's right to co-opt historical events and real people for the sake of fiction.  This had a particular impact on me as I've wrestled with this myself as a novelist.  Oh, I've wrestled with it...and then simply left the ring and wrote what I wanted.  But like Binet, I was wary of putting words into the mouths of characters from history.  As he says in HHhH:  There is nothing more artificial in a historical narrative than...dialogue--reconstructed from more or less firsthand accounts with the idea of breathing life into the dead pages of history...When a writer tries to bring a conversation back to life in this way, the result is often contrived and the effect the opposite of that desired: you see too clearly the strings controlling the puppets, you hear too distinctly the author's voice in the mouths of these historical figures.

On the other hand, like Binet, I am equally compelled to tell the stories that, for whatever reason, have lodged themselves in my conscious and subconscious mind.  As Binet says:  I don't want to drag this vision around with me all my life without having tried, at least, to give it some substance.  I just hope that, however bright and blinding the veneer of fiction that covers this fabulous story, you will still be able to see through it to the historical reality that lies behind.

What I'm saying, I suppose--and perhaps I'll write more about this in another post--is that the writer must treat the subjects he has chosen, the historical personages--characters if you will--with the respect they are worthy of.  Not the best sentence there, but you get my drift.  Binet has been brutally honest about the doubt and the conviction; the obsession, the honesty and dishonesty that go into a work of historical fiction.  The above quote could, in fact, serve as a manifesto of sorts.

Two Of The Greats Are Gone

In the past two weeks, two of my favourite writers passed away.  Great artists both, I never met either and yet both had a profound influence on how I write. In fact, both were so good at what they did that they could put the fear of God into lesser writers like myself.  Reading them as a writer could make you stop and shudder in wonder--How does he do that?--and, occasionally, despair--I might as well chuck it in because nothing I write will ever, ever match this...  

Elmore Leonard and Seamus Heaney might not, at first glance, appear to have much in common other than that they were both 'writers'.  One American, the other Irish.  One a novelist, the other a poet etc. etc.  But what they both shared was a love for, and profound trust in, the language of the common man.  Both had a gift for rendering the sound of speech--whether Detroit or Miami, Bellaghy or Belfast-- as it is locally spoken.  And not merely the turns of phrase, the quip or curse or colloquialism, but the rhythms of speech.

Two examples, just chosen randomly:  Heaney, from his poem
The Flight Path: "When, for fuck's sake, are you going to write/Something for us?/If I do write something,/Whatever it is, I'll be writing for/myself."  And here's Leonard from his novel, City Primeval-High Noon in Detroit:  "'Yeah, it's dark in here,' Clement said, looking around Uncle Deano's, at the steer horns on the walls and the mirrors framed with horse collars. 'Darker'n most places that play Country, but it's intimate. You know it? I thought if we was gonna have a intimate talk why not have it in a intimate place?'  Clement straightened, looking up.  'Except for that goddamn pinball machine; sounds like a monkey playing a 'lectric organ.'

One a sharply brilliant political, autobiographical poem and one a fiercely brilliant, mordantly humourous crime novel, but in both you can literally hear the men in them talking. Like they were sitting with you on the train, as in The Flight Path or in Uncle Deano's in City Primeval.  Both writers, both geniuses.  And may they both Rest In Peace.

    

Keeping Up With the Times...The Sunday Times Review

And while I'm at it here at the auld blogging, here's the review of Irregulars published yesterday in the Sunday Times.  So far, the critics have been more than kind.  I was kind of delighted with it.

Sunday Times Culture Section 21.07.13
At A GLANCEIrregulars by KEVIN McCARTHYNew Island £13.99 pp383
It’s Dublin, 1922, and demobilised Royal Irish Constabulary man Seán O’Keeffe is at a loose, fragile and unemployable end. He drinks too much, he’s lonely for any kind of companionship, he is spooked by memories of combat in Gallipoli and in Ireland’s ‘’Tan War’’, he is mourning the death-in-action of his younger brother, and he is guilt-ridden at not seeing his parents for months even though he lives less than a mile from the family home. A chance meeting with a doctor alerts O’Keeffe to the fact that his father – also a former policeman – is ill. Three days later, after a skinful of booze and with the vague recollection if ‘’a heady miasma of perfume and sweat....the laughter of women and a crackling gramophone’’, O’Keeffe finally returns home.His father, now drifting in and out of early-onset Alzheimer’s, burdens O’Keeffe witha moral debt that must be repaid to Ginny Dolan, a powerful brothel keeper in the city’s infamous Monto area. For some unknown reason, Dolan had O’Keeffe’s father in her pocket, and it is now the turn of his son to take that place. Ginny Dolan’s request? O’Keeffe must find her beloved teenage son, Nicholas, who has taken up with republican guerrillas (aka the ‘’irregulars’’).With a nod to fellow Irish-American writer Dennis Lehane, Kevin McCarthy – whose 2010 debut crime Novel, Peeler, also featured the character of O’Keeffe – blends a rigorously researched, factually based storyline with an array of crime-novel characters, only a few of which come across as hackneyed.O’Keeffe stalks his prey through the main thoroughfares and back streets of Dublin, via detention camps in Gormanstown. Dolan is embittered and quick-witted: ‘’Only in Ireland can men let politics come between them and a screw,’’ she notes.It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a strong interest in Irish history – McCarthy writes such an involving, oft-times harsh story that lack of knowledge neither intrudes nor undermines they enjoyment. The contextual mood seems realistic for the times that are portrayed. Depression and disappointment, poverty, prostitution and child abuse are all here. No pretty pictures are painted and Irregulars is all the better for it
Tony Clayton-Lea

Keeping Up With the Times...A Review

And while I'm at it here at the auld blogging, here's the review of Irregulars published yesterday in the Sunday Times.  So far, the critics have been more than kind.  I was kind of delighted with it.

Sunday Times Culture Section 21.07.13
At A GLANCEIrregulars by KEVIN McCARTHYNew Island £13.99 pp383
It’s Dublin, 1922, and demobilised Royal Irish Constabulary man Seán O’Keeffe is at a loose, fragile and unemployable end. He drinks too much, he’s lonely for any kind of companionship, he is spooked by memories of combat in Gallipoli and in Ireland’s ‘’Tan War’’, he is mourning the death-in-action of his younger brother, and he is guilt-ridden at not seeing his parents for months even though he lives less than a mile from the family home. A chance meeting with a doctor alerts O’Keeffe to the fact that his father – also a former policeman – is ill. Three days later, after a skinful of booze and with the vague recollection if ‘’a heady miasma of perfume and sweat....the laughter of women and a crackling gramophone’’, O’Keeffe finally returns home.His father, now drifting in and out of early-onset Alzheimer’s, burdens O’Keeffe witha moral debt that must be repaid to Ginny Dolan, a powerful brothel keeper in the city’s infamous Monto area. For some unknown reason, Dolan had O’Keeffe’s father in her pocket, and it is now the turn of his son to take that place. Ginny Dolan’s request? O’Keeffe must find her beloved teenage son, Nicholas, who has taken up with republican guerrillas (aka the ‘’irregulars’’).With a nod to fellow Irish-American writer Dennis Lehane, Kevin McCarthy – whose 2010 debut crime Novel, Peeler, also featured the character of O’Keeffe – blends a rigorously researched, factually based storyline with an array of crime-novel characters, only a few of which come across as hackneyed.O’Keeffe stalks his prey through the main thoroughfares and back streets of Dublin, via detention camps in Gormanstown. Dolan is embittered and quick-witted: ‘’Only in Ireland can men let politics come between them and a screw,’’ she notes.It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a strong interest in Irish history – McCarthy writes such an involving, oft-times harsh story that lack of knowledge neither intrudes nor undermines they enjoyment. The contextual mood seems realistic for the times that are portrayed. Depression and disappointment, poverty, prostitution and child abuse are all here. No pretty pictures are painted and Irregulars is all the better for it
Tony Clayton-Lea

Summer Reading List and Rocking the Sunshine

It's weird here, in Ireland, these past couple of weeks because there's been this big yellow orb in the sky casting heat and good cheer over the land, causing outbreaks of bbq-ing and sitting round with a good book while four years of Vitamin D are soaked up by milk white skin. So, I know I should probably be using GoodReads for this but I can never figure the damn site out--blogging it up here is hard enough for me and would probably be impossible without my daughter's technical imput--but I've been reading loads of fiction that I'd put off during Irregulars edits etc. and here's some of it:

Mission to Paris by Alan Furst--I save Alan Furst for my holidays.  If I have a hero, it's Furst.  No one writing better prose at the moment.  Tone, style and content match perfectly with the pre-war (WWII) settings.  All of his books are brilliant.  Twenty pages in, so is this one.
My Hero: Alan Furst...If I write half as well as he does I'm happy
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter--Wouldn't have probably picked this one up in a bookshop, though I'd read very good reviews of it.  In England at my nephew's communion last month and my sister said she hadn't read a novel she'd loved as much in years.  I convinced her to let me take with me and read it in two days.  Brilliant, funny, romantic and really, really well written.  Some writers make you jealous with just how well they can write.  Walter is one of them...bastards!
Beautiful Book
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn--Needed something to read on a train to Dublin and bought this at the local Spar shop.  Now, normally I don't find much to like in the way of books at Spar...Becks and Heineken, yes.  Books...ummm, well...  But needs as needs must--I get very nervous if I've nothing to read on me--and I wasn't able to put the damn thing down.  Was hooked by Rush/Lusk and finished it in 24 hours.  Again, a writer who can really write, well in control of tone and shifts in narrative and voice.  Clever plot, even cleverer commentary on modern marriage and the expectations of those who came of age in the bubble economy and now living with expectations shattered.  Believe the hype.  A damn good psychological thriller.
No, really, it really is un-put-downable!
Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay by Don Rickey Jr.--Research and that's all I'll say on that one other than it's fascinating and giving me just what I need for the new book which I'm sporadically writing researching at the moment.
A lot of what a writer reads for research is dull...this ain't
And because I've seen other authors doing it on their blogs...here's what I'm listening to:

Scissorfight--Balls Deep--New Hampshire's finest.  Heavy...very, very heavy and very clever at the same time.  Someone described them as Clutch's substance abusing younger brother.  I wish it was me who said that. I challenge anyone to listen to New Hampshire's Alright (If You Like Fighting) and not want to...umm, fight?  And Outmotherfucker the Man is surely an anthem for our times.
New Hampshire's Finest...R.I.P.
(Riot In Progress)
Clutch--Earthrocker--The older, wiser brothers to Scissorfight put out their finest album since Blast Tyrant in May and it hasn't been off my turntable...ok, car CD player/computer etc. since.  Fast, heavy, bluesy.  This baby got bounce.  Like Sabbath crossed with Skynard and sent to college.  Genius.
Earthrocker...The Best Hard Rock Album in the Last Ten Years?