by Evelyn Cullen
ALMOST 100 literature fans turned out to a recent evening to the community library in Carndonagh for a fascinating talk featuring the current Laureate of fiction in Ireland Colm Tóibín, and International Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch.
There was a palpable buzz in the air as attendees took their seats on a bright, sunny evening to listen and partake in a discussion about Prophet Song, a chilling dystopian novel imagining Ireland as a totalitarian state, for which Lynch won the Booker Prize in November last year, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world.
The free event was part of an initiative by the Arts Council called The Art of Reading in partnership with Laureate for Irish Fiction. Now in its third year, it’s a monthly book club which takes Colm Tóibín to libraries around the country meeting with guest writers to discuss a piece of their work, and give the public the chance to join the conversation.
August was the turn of Carndonagh library to host the event and internationally acclaimed local man Paul Lynch was the guest writer.
Lynch was born in Limerick and lives in Dublin though he grew up in Carndonagh in the eighties and nineties, and he spoke about the influence this had on his writing. “There was nothing else to do here” he laughed “you cycled your bike, read books and made your own fun”.
As young as age 11 years he had a job in Mickey Herron’s local bookshop, “which was exactly what I needed” he said referring to the opportunity to read all around him after having “read the house dry”.
He talked about his process of writing being like going through a “door into the dark”, where a story “arrives” to him intuitively rather than rationally, allowing him to perceive the seed of a story fully formed which grows organically throughout the writing.
Though that’s not to say that it’s easy, “I write 200 words in a day if I’m lucky” he said.
Prophet Song tells the fictional story of a young family trying to cope with the unravelling of liberal democracy, as Ireland slides into fascism and shadowy government forces including what is called the GSNB (Garda National Services Bureau), effectively the secret police, do away with freedom as we know it.
Melissa Harrison in the Guardian called it “the Irish offspring of The Handmaid’s Tale and Nineteen Eighty-Four”.
Some of the writers Lynch mentioned who influence his work include Virginia Woolf, Hermann Melville, Dostoyevsky, Joseph Conrad, William Faulkner, and Cormac McCarthy. Asked by one of the attendees for a great book from the last ten years, he recommends Hurricane Season by Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor’s, who he says “is the real deal”.
The Q&A at the end, as Q&As always are, was an interesting part of the evening.
One man welcomed him back to Carndonagh “on behalf of all Carn people”. Something of a competition arose among attendees about who read the book the fastest, with the winner being one woman who said she read it in one sitting from afternoon until early morning because she “couldn’t find a place to stop”.
A close second was Lynch’s first teacher from primary school, who said she read it in two sittings.
Another attendee spoke of the power of the novel to draw her into the story of the family in the novel, into their worry and angst, and this speaker wondered if Prophet Song should be on the national curriculum.
Lynch also spoke of the influence of cinema on his work, which makes one imagine how great Prophet Song would look on the big screen. Is there a movie in the pipeline?
Next month’s Art of Reading guest writer is Caoilinn Hughes and the discussion will be on her novel The Alternatives. For more information and to join future events, visit at the Arts Council website www.artscouncil.ie
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