10 Questions with Keith Donohue
1. What was the most unusual job you have ever held?
One summer I worked in construction, helping to build townhouses, and my job revolved around all of the tasks no one else wanted to do. Laying plastic in crawlspaces in the middle of the August heat made me realize that writing might be a better option.
2. What’s the greatest moment in your writing career?
Publishing “The Stolen Child,” my first novel, was a tremendous thrill, but I have to say that getting the chance to meet the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who I had written about, was the best moment.
3. How has your experiences with the National Endowment for the Arts affected you as a novelist?
That’s a great question. Working at the NEA exposed me to a lot of different kinds of art – visual art, music, theater, literature – that led me to think more generally about how the arts actually work to engage and enchant the mind. Also, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of different artists—from Martha Graham to Toni Morrison to Mikhail Baryshinkov—and to understand how similar they are while at the same time get the sense of passion they bring to their creativity. I wrote speeches there as well, and that’s great training for the novelist’s need to occupy another persona.
4. Who is your favorite writer?
I love the work of so many writers, but I have a special place in my heart for the Irish novelist Flann O’Brien. He wrote three masterpieces: “At Swim-Two-Birds,” “The Third Policeman,” and “The Poor Mouth,” and I still laugh out loud when I read them.
5. What was the genesis of The Boy Who Drew Monsters?
A couple of different strands wound together. First, I wanted to see if I could write a psychological Gothic story under the influences of Shirley Jackson and Henry James’s “Turn of the Screw.” Second, the inner life of a character who is afraid to go outside. And third, I read a newspaper story about cross-country skiing on the beach in Maine, and I thought that would be a wonderful setting—a house hemmed in on one side by a snowstorm and by the ocean on the other with something outside trying to get in.
6. What current writing projects are you working on?
I have another novel in the works, but I’m superstitious about talking out the story while I’m writing. I’d only say that there’s nothing supernatural in this one.
7. Is there an overall theme to your writing?
A couple of things. All of my work deals, in some fashion, with the question of belief and things we cannot see or prove. I’ve been interested as well in how art can reenchant us, lift us from everyday experience into something magical.
8. What type of scenes do you most enjoy writing?
Believe it or not, but comic scenes that break the tension. Suspense is a delicate dance, and comedy actually helps keep the steps going.
9. What is your best quality as a writer?
Curiosity? I love writing sentences.
10. If Hollywood was making a film adaptation of The Boy Who Drew Monsters, and the director asked you to cast the role of Jack Peter Keenan, who would you choose?
Jacob Tremblay was wonderful in “Room,” but the trouble with children is that they grow up so quickly!
One summer I worked in construction, helping to build townhouses, and my job revolved around all of the tasks no one else wanted to do. Laying plastic in crawlspaces in the middle of the August heat made me realize that writing might be a better option.
2. What’s the greatest moment in your writing career?
Publishing “The Stolen Child,” my first novel, was a tremendous thrill, but I have to say that getting the chance to meet the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who I had written about, was the best moment.
3. How has your experiences with the National Endowment for the Arts affected you as a novelist?
That’s a great question. Working at the NEA exposed me to a lot of different kinds of art – visual art, music, theater, literature – that led me to think more generally about how the arts actually work to engage and enchant the mind. Also, I had the opportunity to meet a lot of different artists—from Martha Graham to Toni Morrison to Mikhail Baryshinkov—and to understand how similar they are while at the same time get the sense of passion they bring to their creativity. I wrote speeches there as well, and that’s great training for the novelist’s need to occupy another persona.
4. Who is your favorite writer?
I love the work of so many writers, but I have a special place in my heart for the Irish novelist Flann O’Brien. He wrote three masterpieces: “At Swim-Two-Birds,” “The Third Policeman,” and “The Poor Mouth,” and I still laugh out loud when I read them.
5. What was the genesis of The Boy Who Drew Monsters?
A couple of different strands wound together. First, I wanted to see if I could write a psychological Gothic story under the influences of Shirley Jackson and Henry James’s “Turn of the Screw.” Second, the inner life of a character who is afraid to go outside. And third, I read a newspaper story about cross-country skiing on the beach in Maine, and I thought that would be a wonderful setting—a house hemmed in on one side by a snowstorm and by the ocean on the other with something outside trying to get in.
6. What current writing projects are you working on?
I have another novel in the works, but I’m superstitious about talking out the story while I’m writing. I’d only say that there’s nothing supernatural in this one.
7. Is there an overall theme to your writing?
A couple of things. All of my work deals, in some fashion, with the question of belief and things we cannot see or prove. I’ve been interested as well in how art can reenchant us, lift us from everyday experience into something magical.
8. What type of scenes do you most enjoy writing?
Believe it or not, but comic scenes that break the tension. Suspense is a delicate dance, and comedy actually helps keep the steps going.
9. What is your best quality as a writer?
Curiosity? I love writing sentences.
10. If Hollywood was making a film adaptation of The Boy Who Drew Monsters, and the director asked you to cast the role of Jack Peter Keenan, who would you choose?
Jacob Tremblay was wonderful in “Room,” but the trouble with children is that they grow up so quickly!
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