tDQ:: There is no better way to begin this conversation than with
Superintendent Cecil Megarry, the central character in all four of your Megarry Mystery
series: A Kind of Homecoming (1994), A Stone of the Heart (1995), The Sad
Case of Harpo Higgins (1996) and Murder at Piper's Gut (1997). Why is a man with
such flaws (always high on nicotine and alcohol) imbue with this ingenuity to solve
near-impossible crime cases?
McEldowney: This is a very good question. In my view, flaws make characters human. There
was a time in English writing, and particularly in crime writing, when there was a fashion for
clean-cut flawless characters. You can take the two principle detectives of Agatha Christie as
examples--Miss Marple and Inspector Poirot. They were extremely successful and continue to be
so. But in American crime writing since the 1930s and 1940s, the trend has been for characters
who are less than perfect and even downright unsavoury. This has reached a sort of climax in
the work of James Ellroy where the heroes are sometimes killers themselves and are often as
bad or worse than their adversaries. Graham Greene, who is one of my favourite writers, always
made a point of presenting characters with flaws and defects, sometimes physical flaws like
a scar or a limp. This had an impression on me because it makes these characters outsiders.
When I began to write the Megarry novels ten years ago I was seeking to create a hero who
people could identify with so I gave him several flaws. He drinks and smokes too much. He
can be impatient and lose his temper. And sometimes he can be violent. But he also has the
ability for compassion towards those caught up in crime. I think this makes him a more likeable
character. Although if I was starting today, I might not have him drink so much.
tDQ: Is your experience as a journalist with The Irish Times
a contributory factor in the beauty of the language and investigative nature of the Megarry
Mystery series?
McEldowney: I'm not sure about this. My experience as a journalist certainly gave me a
better insight into human nature because journalists come across all sorts of strange and
weird events, some of
| "The novel
was a reaction to some of the awful books that had been written about Northern Ireland and
which made no effort to place the political violence in any kind of context."
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which never appear in print. So it may have helped me with my plots.
As regards the actual writing, journalism taught me one important thing which is to write
simply and I have striven to do this in all my creative work. Simple writing is a skill in
itself. Some people think it is easy but that has not been my experience. When I am writing
I am always conscious of the need to hold the reader's attention and to keep him/her
interested. So I have to constantly ask if one word would do instead of two and if there is
a simpler word instead of a larger one. But simple writing should not be confused with bad
writing.
tDQ: The recent incident in Belfast echoed, with a frightened
accuracy, the plot of A Stone of the Heart: a heist in Belfast; in a northern Bank; and
suspiciously executed by "a pressure group fighting for the community." How much of this
culture of crime and violence and the hostile politics of the Northern Ireland of A Stone
of the Heart are still there in the Northern Ireland of 2005?
McEldowney: In A Stone of the Heart, I was attempting to show how small people
can sometimes get caught up in great events, often unwittingly. It is a political novel,
written before the ceasefires and it tried to look at the situation in Northern Ireland and
what had caused it and also how the violence from all sides was self-perpetuating. There is
a moment near the end of the novel when one of the characters talks about a stone thrown into
a pond and how the energy released will reverberate forever. The novel was a reaction to some
of the awful books that had been written about Northern Ireland and which made no effort to
place the political violence in any kind of context. Of course, the crime and violence
continues but the political situation has changed. In fact the ceasefires of 1994 caused me
the same sort of problems that spy thriller writers encountered with the fall of the Berlin
Wall. As a result, I decided to move Megarry to Dublin for the last two novels. These are
straightforward crime novels and have less of a political dimension than the first two
novels set in Belfast.
tDQ: As an Irish of Northern extraction, it is understandable that
Belfast and Dublin are the historical settings of all your narratives. Are there specific
real-life incidents that are the source material for your novels?
McEldowney: I was born in Belfast and lived there till I was 27 so, of course, the city
has had a great effect in shaping my life and my thinking. Four of my six novels to date have
been set there and the other two in Dublin, which is my adopted home. The Faloorie Man,
which was published by New Island Books in 1999, is the most autobiographical of all my books.
It has also been the most successful being published in Britain, Germany and Greece. It deals
with a small boy growing up in North Belfast and although it is fiction, many of the events in
that novel are taken from my own experience. It was the novel that I most enjoyed writing and
it is the only novel that has ever been set in that part of Belfast. I tried to convey the
great love and sense of joy that I experienced when growing up there in the 1940s and 1950s.
The novel also borrowed some of the experiences from my wife's life. I have no doubt that
personal events have shaped my other novels to some extent, although I created an RUC man
who was a very successful character even though I had no experience of policemen in my
background. I think that every writer uses personal experience to some extent in his/her work.
It has often been said that we write best about what we know. But the imagination is the
powerful tool that fashions these experiences into creative fiction
tDQ: Some critics think that a major flaw in Stella's Story
(2002) is that you failed to provide an explanation for her mother's lack of attempt to locate
Stella Maguire's whereabouts for the four years she was away from her Fermanagh home. What is
your response to this?
McEldowney: This a good point. When Stella gave her baby away and decided to start a
new life for herself in Dublin she tells us that she changed and became harder and more
ruthless. And of course, she wanted to keep the baby a secret from her family because of
the terrible stigma that attached to having a child outside marriage in Ireland of the
1940s. Stella deliberately kept her distance from her family. She wanted to build a career
and appear successful in the eyes of her family. So she didn't visit them for four years,
even though she did keep in touch with them by way of letters. Remember communications in
those days were light years away from what they are today. Still I think this is a valid
criticism to make.
tDQ: Last year in a writers' meeting at the Blanchardstown library,
where you were the guest writer, you hinted that you would be releasing a new novel this 2005.
What is the title? And what is the novel all about?
McEldowney: This book is provisionally titled Hotel del Flores and it is about a
group of characters who meet by accident in a holiday hotel in Tenerife and how their lives
interact. It is humorous and light and is a new departure for me.
tDQ: We understand that the novel would be released under a
pseudonym.
McEldowney: Yes, as Kate McCabe, which was my mother's name.
tDQ: All your previous novels have been published under your
real name. Why do you want to publish Hotel del Flores under an assumed name?
McEldowney: It is aimed at a different market and my publishers felt that by
using my real name
| "I think that
every writer uses personal experience to some extent in his/her work. It has often been said
that we write best about what we know. But the imagination is the powerful tool that fashions
these experiences into creative fiction."
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the readers might get confused because of my previous work. Writing under
an assumed name is not unusual in fiction. Many writers do it to separate different genres
of novels ie crime and serious fiction.
tDQ: You are a renowned crime writer. But with The Faloorie
Man (1999), Stella's Story and the forthcoming Hotel del Flores, one easily
notices a sudden shift away from crime fiction. Is this a case of being bored with crime fiction
and want to seek for new challenges?
McEldowney: As I explained in relation to your earlier question, when the ceasefires
came into effect in 1994 in Northern Ireland, the political landscape changed. Until then,
Megarry had been fighting the IRA and now they were no longer on active service. For the
next two novels, I moved him to Dublin but I felt that something was lost in the transition
and I wasn't happy. Also, I wanted to try a new creative direction. I had written four crime
novels in four years and I didn't want to become pigeon-holed as a crime writer and nothing
else. The next novel, The Faloorie Man, was a move into main-stream creative fiction
as was Stella's Story published by New Island Books in 2002.
tDQ: A major theme that runs through your novels is the sense of
justice and moral character. How does this reflect your philosophy of life and art?
McEldowney: I have tried in my crime novels, particularly, to portray my characters in a
moral light so that even the "bad" guys are not devoid of human qualities. I believe that
the human character is extremely complex and things are rarely black and white. The Faloorie
Man and Stella's Story deal with particular moral attitudes that pertained in
Ireland up till recent times--regarding children born outside marriage and their mothers and
the injustices that they suffered. So I suppose the answer is Yes. They do reflect my
philosophy of life and art.
tDQ: We began this interview with Superintendent Cecil Megarry and it is appropriate
that we end it with him: Should we expect Superintendent Cecil Megarry and a fifth Megarry
Mystery?
McEldowney:
I would like to bring Megarry back to the printed page and I have a lot of ideas for further
novels. I know that he has many fans among the general public. I also believe that there is a
huge potential readership for a good Irish crime detective. If I can find the time, I would
like to write another Megarry book.
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