Welcome to A Pair of Bookends the book club you can carry Anywhere.

I'm your host Hannah Matt Donald and are we bookend in the conversation with some of the most exciting voices from the bookish world.

Hello everyone, what a gorgeous turn out.

Welcome to my second ever A Pair of Bookends Live.

We are recording at Social Refuge, home of the iconic quill It bookshop.

I'm Hannah, host of the A Pair of Blekens podcast, and I am so excited to be here to interview the incredible clon Michelle Howorth for our November book Club episode.

We are, of course here as part of Chloe's book tour for heat berth Upon It?

Has anybody here read it yet?

WHOA?

But have we got some burn fans in the house?

Hey?

Okay, so this will be a spoiler free chat, so you don't need to worry if you haven't already read the book.

I invite you all to grab yourself as a copy, which of course you can do at the end.

But before we dive into.

Our chat, I will tell you all a little bit about Chloe so Clovishell Howorth is an Irish writer.

She was born in nineteen ninety six and grew up in the West Court Country Snide, which has been a huge inspiration for a writing Chloe studied English Media and Cultural Studies at IADT That I Say in dun Larry Dublin.

Her debut novel, Sunburn, was shortlisted for the twenty twenty three Nearrow Book Award for Debut Fiction, the twenty twenty four Book of the Year Discover Award at the British Book Awards, and the twenty twenty four Polari First Book Prize, and was longlisted for the twenty twenty four Diverse Book Awards.

Her second novel, Hearth upon It As I Said, is on November book Club picks for the podcast, and here's chat all about it.

Welcome Chloe Or to Manchester and to.

Have five weekends.

Hello, Thank you so much.

Bye everyone, nice for coming.

I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

I'm so excited for us to chat about your amazing new book.

But I do always have.

To start my podcast by asking what you're currently needing.

Okay, so I'm reading.

It's taking me embarrassingly long time to read it because it's a very short book.

It's called The Princess of seventy second Street.

This Hey, So it's a short book I just between the Jigs and the reds that I haven't had time to stand and read it.

But it's really good.

It's read a woman living in New York and she she has psychosis.

But when she's in like these like states of psychosis, she calls it her radiance and she really enjoys being in that state.

And when she's in psychosis, she thinks that she's the Princess of seventy second Street.

And it's just it's a very interesting look about like women and mental illness, and you know how much of her choices are her mental illness, and how much of it has heard just going against the grain.

Is it a new book, No, it's not.

It's it's like one of these reissued ones.

It's such a good read.

Haven't finished it yet?

Well I'm Bocta though, so oh yeah yeah, if I literally I've finished it there in twenty minutes, I say, yeah the back it's still for your pages left.

But I'm really enjoying it.

It's very descriptive, and especially the descriptions of when she's in psychosis, like the way she sees the world is beautiful.

So that's what I'm reading right now.

No thought, if you've got quite a diverse do you have a quite diverse taste in terms of.

Reading, Well, yes and no, Like I'll read pretty, I'll read any.

Like lesbian story, so that can bring me into a lot of different genres.

Well to me, I'm like, they're all lesbian stories, and then then a lot of Irish writers as well, so it's very specific.

But then also that leads it to be very broad, you know, yeah, yeah, So it sounds like you've got good reading taste.

Anyway, I definitely want to read that book.

And I like it kills me.

So we've already kind of figured out.

That we've got quite a few someburon farms in the house.

But I do want to start by asking about someburn before we dive into your new book.

Obviously it's taken off.

I listed there many awards it's been shortlisted for, but it was hugely successful on my book talk.

What was that like for you?

It was really weird.

I feel anticipated that course, and like I remember the first few times I saw like randomly on TikTok, I was like, what the hell, where did you find that?

It's been so so nice, like just so unexpected, and yeah, like it's just the nicest thing ever.

We were talking upstairs before about I saw this TikTok yesterday of somebody at a Chapel Rowne concert and feel like nobody here knows that we're thinking about someburn and they literally had someburn in their hands while they wrote Chapel oone gig I was obsessed with.

But let's get into your new book keeper from it, which I absolutely it's just so I mean, I just love the way that you write.

I loved this complex family that we get all wrapped up in.

And I tried to put the book down the other night to go to sleep, but I just couldn't put it down and I stayed up till half won't finishing it.

It's just so good.

I saw somebody say that it was a masterclass in suspense, and I would completely agree.

But would you like to tell us what your kind of pictures for the book?

Okay?

Yes, So I'm getting better at like quickly summarized and wander it's about So it's set in nineteen sixty five in rural Ireland, and it follows these four siblings, the Odiery siblings, and we meet them as they're leaving their hometown and overnight they're moving to this new village to start again under suspicious, mysterious circumstances.

And over the course of the book, you learn, along with the locals in the village, what's up with the earlieries and why they've left their lives behind and and everything as now as it's thems with them.

And it's a lot about like grief and longing and repression and staffage, obsession of courses there and gender and sexuality.

Yeah, lots of different things, all the good things.

Yeah, I don't ask as well the second novel.

Syndrome is quite a thing for writers.

It's always scary, Yeah, and I imagine it's quite scary as well.

If your first book has been so successful, did that affect your kind of I don't know, like how you felt about writing the Folk Creep.

Be nervous because of the success or did it kind of feel encouraging?

Yeah?

What was that?

Like?

Well?

I remember the day after Sunburn came out, I had a call with my agent and she was like, what's your next book about?

And I like, my book is out, Like that's my only book, so then I had to just start thinking, like that day more or less, okay, write what le right next.

So it's not like Sunburn had really had much attention at all at that point, which is a good thing really because it meant that I kind of just got on with that, like own this, I should say.

But I was then I became nervous because then people kind of slowly but surely did start to say, oh, I really liked Sunbury, really like Sunburn, And at that point I had I knew what this was going to be, and I was like, well, the next book is certainly not Sunburry, Like they're very different.

So I was a bit nervous.

I was like, oh flip, like I'm after kind of getting a readership now, and I'm potentially going to do something that they're not going to enjoy.

So I just had to tell myself, Okay, no one's going to read this book, like really really like convinced my sound like it's just for me.

I was like, you don't have an agent, no one's going to read it.

Just do it and enjoy it.

And then when I like let myself enjoy it as a creative process, that I that second novel syndrome kind of went away.

So that's my hack.

Now I'm just always pretending no one will ever read any of it and I enjoy the process of it because ultimately I'm just thinking tipt the crack for myself, like if I enjoy it, because that's why you do creative things.

So yeah, that's that's how I kind of gone around that.

But it was there for a minute.

I think that's what Time wants to hear a little reading.

Okay, So yes, it's a hard book to talk about without spoiling, and so it's a hard book to read from without spoiling.

But this part from it's from early on in the book, and there's four narrators in it, three of the siblings and then one person in the town.

So this is from one of the brothers, Jack.

It's his first morning in this new town, and he is just a bit freaked basically at the prospect of literally starting his whole life again.

And he's also he's grieving someone and he's quite deep in his grief at this point and it's kind of taking over how he thinks.

So this is this is Jack's morning.

I wake to blonde light for a moment there is nothing but this gleaming, pale yellow.

What sweetness, what peace?

Yes, let me touch it.

I chase it, trying not to come back to life.

But it's too late.

I am suddenly awake.

All the appalling color of the world rushes back to me, and there is no more room for the blonde of view.

I have woken to the day of your first annimursary, the comfortable smell of the newspaper and cooking rashers, the crushing weight of three hundred and sixty five days, the urge within me to mention your name and force my siblings to dissect every moment of your death.

I sit at the table, Peggy alongside me, asking Anna where her school pinafore is gone.

Tom puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes, without looking up from the paper.

It's hard to say how many times he has told me that time heals all wounds.

Hard advice to be grateful for when you earn something that I want to heal from.

I feel every muscle in his hand and sends the small bit of good that's left in me back to Kilmara, back to you, blessing myself.

I take the heel of the bread the doctor left.

Do you know that I would have helped your sisters today.

I'd be below at your father's house now with the cart, waiting to bring them all down to mass.

And then I would have stayed on and looked after him.

I would have looked after him for the rest of his life.

I hope that you know how much they mean to me.

Yet another thing out of my reach.

I butter the bread and try to find a way to make the best of this.

But sure, look, I hear your voice telling me, look at all the good things that are here.

And it's true.

As the song begins to show itself, I see that I've peggy and bread and BlackBerry jam.

Somehow I've enough strength left in me to believe that nineteen sixty five could be good to us all.

And in the mornings, however, briefly, I have blonde light.

It's so nice to him in my voice as well, Oh, go out.

Do you be reading it?

No?

I get stressed, really and I feel like readings then you know it's not, that's not Can you tell?

This is the way I speak?

And when I read that, I'm like, it's very like, No, you read it?

Love?

It was so beautiful.

Thank you.

No, I absolutely loved it, And I think you really get a flavor there of like how much of a like visual writer you are.

I think that's how you describe it, because when I read your books, you know, you can really see how like when you talk about like the sunlight hitting a character, or like just really beautiful observations about things, which just yeah, made me completely fall in love with the characters.

And I've listened to several of your interviews and you talk about how you have a color palette for each of your books when you're writing.

Could you tell us a bit about that and how it helps with your process.

Yeah, that's like one of the first things that came to me for Sunburn and for this book.

So yeah, like the Sunburn color palette, it's very obvious, isn't it.

Like it's summertime, sunrise, sunsets, like warm golden colors, and it really like comes across a lot, I think in the writings.

So with this the first thing I did with it was I was like, I'll just do the opposite color palette.

So it's very in this book.

There's lots of like purple and gray and indigo and those kind of colors are mentioned a lot, and that kind of made it like a wintertime story as opposed to a summertime story.

And so once I had like the colors and the seasons and the weather, that's like where I started.

It seems to be like an easy place for me to start, and then everything builds around that.

You know, where did that come from?

Was that something you've been told or is it just I don't know, you've always written.

It's just one of those things.

I don't know.

I don't know I was that taught it, but like it's just yeah, it's like an abstract way to start a novel, but it's just it of seems to help me to understand like where I'm going in terms of the mood of the piece, you know what I mean.

It definitely feels like keepeth Upon it is much darker.

But then I think in Sunburn as well, like you said, there was much like brighter, lighter colors than I think.

There's a shift in the color palette part way through, but I don't want to spoil it for anybody, so but yeah, you definitely get the visuals for that, which I loved.

I also felt like there was definitely a change of pace.

With this book, it feels like there's it's much more fast paced.

Like this sunburn it was like long summer days and it was just like, you know, a much slower pace.

But with this one, it felt like there was almost like, I don't know, like a chicken time.

About to go off.

Did it feel like that when you were writing it?

Well, that I was trying to get there, of course when I was writing, and I was like, this is slow, you know, But I think because there's four narrators, that's what gives it pace.

I'm sure if there was just one narrator in this book, it would seem probably quite slow.

But I think it's more just the fact that it keeps changing perspective and then that it begins to change perspective quite quickly.

That's what gives it pace.

I think I was just keen to see if I could do something pacy, because Sunburne is very long summer days, very dreamy, this sort of thing.

So I was like, I wonder, can I actually do something else, like am I able to write with pace?

Or is that just something I'm not able to do?

So it was more test for myself, really, you know.

I mean it's definitely fast pace.

That's why I don't think I could get to sleep.

We are, and then I'll still lay awakes down at the ceiling thinking about, like what could have happened for these characters.

I did say i'd keep it spoiler free, so I'm gonna be really careful.

Sunburn is obviously told from the perspective of Lucy.

It's just Lucy's perspective, but in heaperth upon it, we have multiple pov We have three of four siblings, and we also have one of their neighbors.

Betty, don't feel like that's a spoiler to say that.

Great.

How do you decide whose perspective you share and how much of it you share?

Well, initially it was the four siblings.

That was where I started, because it kind of just made sense to understand like how the family worked, and I wanted to see it from as many angles as was possible.

So it was the four siblings initially, and then I kind of got this, like the book was almost done and I had this bad feeling that I was like, I think we need an outside perspective from outside the family.

But I was like, maybe I'll get away with it.

Maybe I won't.

And then my editor was like, have you considered someone from outside the family, And I was like, oh God, because then that's so much more writing to do.

So a lot of Peggy's chapters she's with Betty a lot that's not spoiler to say, and so a lot of the scene the scenes and scenarios that were in I kind of reimagine them from Betty's perspective, which was a really good like exercise with a good like writing challenge to see, like how do you write something from the perspective of like an eleven year old and then you know a middle aged woman and where what can stay and what can stay?

So, yeah, it was I think it was definitely a good choice because the family are very intense and like you kind of can't just get your information from them because they're very unreliable and they contradict each other all the time.

So I think having someone outside the family kind of anchors you a bit, and Betty keeps you in the real world a bit more so, She's I think she's important to have.

Yeah, I mean, she's a really great character, and it is kind of cool to say this family from an outside but I suppose you'd be getting the same amount of backstory of this family through from her like you would with Peggy, because there's not much that Peggy will understand because she's so young.

So I suppose it's like a similar amount of perspective that you could share from her.

Obviously, the heapeth Upon It is set in the sixties.

Some Bernes set in the nineties.

I wouldn't want to ask about how you choose the time period that you want to write in.

Was there anything specific for this book about the sixties that drew towards writing it?

It was lots of things, Like initially the first few drafts weren't set in any particular decade, and like there was early drafts where I was like, this could be eighteen hundreds.

Like I wasn't really tied to any particular era until then.

As I was getting more and more serious with it, I was like, right, you need to choose now because you need to know like what do they have access to?

What what can they buy in the shop?

What are they going to have in the house, you know, things like that.

But sixties in our like rural Ireland especially, it was just fascinating time to me because they were so different to what we're used to seeing, like the sixties in London or San Francisco, Like I've such an image like its counterculture and things like woodstock and hippies and all this, like that just wasn't happening in rural Ireland at that time.

It was like that was more seventies, like early to mid seventies, And so I wanted to write about a time where these characters are quite They're in a bit of a claustrophobic situation and they want things to change, but they're not changing.

And I think similarly Ireland at that time, people were ready for change and they were seeing change happen everywhere else, but things weren't changing in Ireland.

So it was just an interesting time, like they seemed to be in a very different position to a lot of other countries in the Western world.

And also I'm sure we'll talk more about queerness, but I wanted to write about a queer character in that setting where I think if if the queer character in this book was in one of those other countries, life probably would have been a lot easier or different at least.

But I wanted to explore queerness in a place and time like in Sunburn, the queerness is quite to boo.

The person's in the book like she feels like she's not allowed to express her queerness, Whereas with this, the queer character in the book doesn't even know what queerness is because it's not she doesn't know any queer people.

It's not something that's represented in the media.

It's not talked about like good or bad.

In my research, that was something I kept coming across.

People were like, we just didn't talk about it.

We didn't talk about it.

So I was like, God, imagine trying to understand that you were queer, but you just it was completely foreign concept to you.

It would be such a confusing, strange, alienating situation.

So yeah, the sixties was kind of the last time when I could have got away with that because early seventies, like the Irish gay rights movements really started to kick off.

Even sixties in like Dublin for example, there would have been some underground spots, but like rural Ireland and sixties it was that last moment of like, there's no such thing as queerness, you know.

Did you get to talk to many queer people about what that experience was like in there?

It sixties in rural land.

Literally, No, it was so difficult to find any first hand accounts because I think just the level of repression is just like, you know, unimaginable.

Yeah, I was able to find a few things.

Again, it was more Dublin and people maybe who would have been living in rural spaces who'd gone to Dublin, certainly people who'd gone to London or America, but like people who just lived in rural spaces, almost impossible.

And what I did find was like awful, like so hard to read.

So yeah, it was, Oh it was I walked like too many trigger warnings would be leffect like they were just too dark.

But yeah, like it was just shocking because it wasn't that long ago, you know, like it really wasn't that long ago at all that I'm and like in my parents' lifetime even I'm like, god, it's hard to believe.

Like queerness was just like blank statement not doesn't exist, and now Ireland is so different, you know.

It was very illuminating.

Yeah, sure, will return to talking about queer characters, but I do want touch them.

Ile we're talking about Royal Island and you grew up in rural island, Yes, why do you think rural Island is such it is so compelling to read about in stories?

Well I'm biased, but I just think it's so beautiful.

It's visually absolutely beautiful in any season.

And I think also like the people who live there, like the way that like the way that people speak, and the culture and the crack like it's just very unique and I just love it.

I don't know, it's just a special part of the world that it's like endlessly fascinating and entertaining to me.

Is there anyone in from ourland?

Whereabouts?

Ah, jackiee from the city.

I do love though the lines of dialogue in the book.

There's so much dialogue that is very Irish.

There's certain phrases and things that I just didn't understand.

But I was just like I was happy to go along for the ride, you know what I mean.

Is it really important for you to have I mean, I suppose it's just natural for you to have that kind of dialogue in there.

Yeah, with this, I just wanted to mirror like the way that I talk and the way that like if I was at home now listening to like maybe my granny and my mom just captured the essence of that type of conversation and the phrasing and the music of their voices.

You know, it's like it's a really lovely thing to tune into, and I just wanted to try and capture it authentically.

But there was times where, like a lot of this, I would write it and then out loud to myself to be like, oh no, I'd actually swapped those two words around or you know, because it's not necessarily grammatically correct, but it has this flow to it.

But sometimes I'd write something down and I'd read it back and I'd be like, what the hell is that?

Like, even sometimes I couldn't decide for it myself.

But yeah, it's not that it was something that it was like this is important to me, but like I just wanted to write in the way that I speak.

I think probably because I live in Brighton now and so it was probably just homesickness and away for me to connect with some sort of subconscious like connection to home.

Yeah, but yeah, it was really like it was a very relaxed way to write, you know, whereas Sunburn, like the language sometimes can be, you know, it's very over the top sometimes, so this was a bit more grounded.

I enjoyed it.

Yeah.

Yeah, there were scenes that I absolutely loved between Betty and.

Is it Caira.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I absolutely loved the moments between them.

There's like one scene where Betty looks out the window and sees Carara marching down the path with her husband behind her, and she's about to go out, but she now can't go out because Kara's coming to bitch about her husband and it's so mad about him, and I just love the moments like that.

I just felt like there's such a kind of community in this little place that they live.

And also it feels like there's a lot of like gossip, which I absolutely loved.

I love the drama of it.

Can I ask about Betty what was the inspiration behind her character?

She is, like, I think she's someone you get in a lot of Irish towns.

She's kind of the quiet queen bee of the town.

Like I wouldn't say she was.

She's a good person, she's a very good person, and she's but you know, she's one of those people who she kind of has it all.

She's popular, she's wealthy, she has a lovely husband who she does love, and she's kind of I don't know, there's something very maternal about her.

She's I think there's one of her in every town.

You know.

I really liked writing her.

She's such a nice character.

So her her kind of story is herself and her husband are like I said, they're like wealthy farmers, and but they've never been able to have children, and they've reached a point now where they never will be able to have children, and it's just been a great disappointment to them.

And so when the Oleeries land on, who desperately need like guidance in their lives, it's kind of the perfect fit of people.

You know, these people need parenting and we want to be parents, so they kind of all become this unit together.

And yeah, she's just lovely.

Maybe maybe she's too nice, but yeah, she's such a special character.

And I think, you know, there's a moment where she's like, why do I always want to like mother things or mother people?

But she really does take on that role, doesn't she.

I Mean, she immediately sees when these siblings arrive in this town village, would you say, village, small, small town, small town, she immediately sees how like fragile and vulnerable they are, and you know, she's encouraging a husband to be like, you must sort the lads out with a job.

And you know, she takes as we said, she takes Peggy, the youngest sibling, under a wing.

And yeah, I do think she is a really special character.

I do want to talk about the use siblings though, because obviously we've said we have four of them and they've moved away from home to start a new life.

Can we say that, Yeah, great, the parents are Dad didn't do a good job of hiding that, so they feel like a very isolated unit.

How did they come to be?

Was it always going to be four siblings?

Yeah, it's weird, Like I never really considered another dynamic.

I just was like, there's four of them and that's it.

But it does work.

I mean, so there's two brothers.

Tom is the oldest, then you've Jack, then you've Anna.

They're all kind of in their late twenties, and then you've Peggy, who's a child.

And I think Tom and Jack are they they were like an exploration of two different types of masculinity.

And then with Anna and Peggy, it's sort of like the mother and the child essentially, so they kind I mean, they all started out off as just like different archetypes.

But it was strange.

I never really considered it being another way.

There just always was the four of them, and I didn't really consider, you know, having less or having more or anything.

They were just the four.

And yeah, the more I wrote them, obviously, the more they like change.

They got a bit out of hand, and they're because they're orphaned.

I think it says it on the back of the book, that's not spoiler.

Yeah, they were like very I enjoyed writing them because they all kind of you know, there's apparently like if something traumatic happens to you at a certain age, you can kind of mentally stop aging.

So like if something bad happens to you when you're fifteen, you kind of be just mentally fifteen forever.

You know, like you can stop developing at that point in time.

So all of these siblings have really stopped developing at like certain ages, and you can kind of like that.

They just they really haven't grown up at all.

So they're very intense.

But it was good to write them.

I mean, you write siblings so well, are you have you got siblings?

Yeah, but we're not We're normal.

It's not inspired by your family, where do you say in the sibling dynamic?

So I have a brother who's two years older than me, and then I have a brother who's four years younger than.

Meddle child, little child, my middle sisters here, I'm the oldest, so I really really I don't want to say related to Tommins some points because he was quite questionable, but yeah, I think as an eldest sibling you really do kind of you feel like there's a lot of pressure.

And I think I really loved the way that you explored the sort of blurred lines between you know, feeling like a sibling but also feeling like a parent.

I think as an oldest child you definitely feel like that sometimes.

But that kind of falls to Anna in this book.

Would you say, yeah, definitely, that was like that was a team.

I just I think it was something I had noticed, like every occurring in my own life, where like, you know, men, whatever they are to your friend, your boyfriend, your brother, whatever, I think if they can they'll make you their mom.

Men are so happy to just don't you think that's true?

It's so true?

And like look everyone's laughing, so I'm like, well, it is true.

It's not just me, and yes, I when I noticed that, I was like, hmm, I'm angry about this, and so this kind of helped me to work through that.

But yeah, like she like the two older brothers in this book very much let her take on the role of the mother.

And I think I was going to say, you know, that time in Irish society, but obviously how much has changed because everyone seems to relate.

But I think at that time in Irish society women were to be mothers, and these lads are like, well, our mom's gone, so you need to step up now and be our mom and also be the Peggy's ma'am, which is a horrible position to be put in, and she really resents that.

So yeah, maybe some of it came from personal experience.

It was athetic to write a verte for sure.

You just want to fight every man.

You say not.

I think they do have a really complicated dynamic, which it sounds like I'm a bit sick because I really enjoy stuff like that.

I'm like, I want to read more of it.

Love complex from the dynamics.

I think it's so interesting to read about.

And I wanted to ask you because I've got a couple of quotes here.

Jack says, on Tom, who is the oldest brother, he's the type to admit to false feelings to please people.

It's hard to know if he has any sincere feelings at all.

And then Tom, the oldest says on Anna, she can be such a frightening girl.

So I have to ask you, would you say that there's love between them still?

I think that, yeah.

See, the thing is they are still all moving as this unit together.

Obviously they have little Peggy to take care of, but does she need three people taking care of her?

Probably not, so.

I think the fact that they've all stuck together, there's definitely a lot of codependency, probably like trauma banding.

But I do think that they want their family to succeed.

They want the family to work out.

Maybe they don't love each other on an individual level, but they love the family and the idea of the family, and they're all very keen for that to work out.

And so, yeah, they put an awful lot of energy into each other, and maybe they waste a lot of energy on each other.

I think there is love there, but it's still strained.

Nobody else can go against them, but you can go against each other.

Yeah, exactly very sibling call.

You mentioned a couple of times about you know, gender roles and how different they are, but also you know, with those laughing, how much has that changed?

And I think both of your books explore those sort of traditional values in the Irish family home, but definitely with this book it's mostly apparent.

How much did you feel that your characters are sort of impacted by those gender roles.

Yeah, I think they're probably all impacted by it quite quite a lot, just because it's something that interests me as a person, and so it naturally finds its way into the writing.

But also like it's a fact of life.

It's not ignorable, isn't it.

You can't just pretend that your gender doesn't rain you in in certain ways or like whatever your expression of gender is, like it is going to put you in a certain position.

So yeah, it's definitely quite a common theme.

But it was really I enjoyed this time writing from the perspective of men, and like I think I write about men a lot, but it was nice to write from the point of view of a man and kind of put myself in their shoes.

And with Tom, the oldest brother, he is the type of you know, his masculinity is very it's like a prison to him almost, like he's like, well, I have to be the best man, the biggest man.

Everyone loves me, everyone's like good man to like he really needs that validation from people that he's just the best man like in town.

And then Jack I wanted to explore the opposite of that, where he is kind of for the first time, allowing himself to be in touch with his emotions, because I think hysterically irishmen especially are just not they have not been allowed to do that.

And so Jack was like, Okay, I'm going to feel my feelings.

But if you've never ever let yourself feel your feelings before, can you imagine the first time you do it?

Like it takes over his life and then he gets so lost in his feelings and it definitely it impacts then how he gets on in this new town, and he's like, why am I not getting on as well as I was getting on before when I was pushing everything down.

So it gave me an awful lot of sympathy for men when I was writing it.

Yeah, do you think.

It's harder to write from a character that's repressing everything?

No, because I think, like on the surf as they're repressing everything, but the internal monologue is just them going over and over and over ruminating on these things.

So if you're in their head, nothing is being repressed, But it's just when you see them from other people's eyes or what they're saying to people, you know, on the surface level.

But I don't know how you could you write a character who was repressed who doesn't actually mention any of the feld, Well, then you wouldn't know that they were repressed, you know what I mean?

So yeah, if anything, I think you have to write about the emotion even more to get across the point that they're really struggling with us.

I mean, I don't think in Sunburn it's ever a mystery how Lucy's feeling.

We know exactly how she's feeling.

I found it really funny in this household how Anna is just forced to cook but she just can't cook, and she's just continuing to like she gives like cold, like it's cold in the middle, and she's making just like everything's just boiled and apart and it's just awful, and like will somebody else please take over?

I also want to ask I'm not somebody that's religious.

So it's really fascinating to me to read about how much of a role religion plays in their society and in these characters' lives.

You know, we really feel the presence of God and the importance of like prayer and going to Mass.

And I don't know if you felt like that was something that was specific to that time period.

I'm not sure what it's like in Ireland now.

Well.

I mean, like I so I was born in ninety six and like grew up in the two thousands, and I'm not from a religious family at all, but like I would say, I'm like culturally Catholic, and like it does inform should Jesus.

It's all in Sonburne like that.

I didn't really have to research that, Like that was all in here.

It definitely informs a lot of like how I see the world.

And so I just think it's a part of living in rural Ireland.

It's just it's in the way we speak, and it's very normal to like passing the church or ven ambulance passes or whatever, to bless yourself, you know, all these little things.

So yeah, I think it was I think, especially in the sixties for the first time people were pushing back against There'd never really been any separation between church and state, and that's when people started to think, hang on, this really can't go on anymore.

And so it was an interesting time to write about Catholicism in Ireland because some of the characters are really embracing their love of God's most of them are starting to question it for the first time ever.

But yeah, I think it is just kind of part of society there.

It's just it is.

I wonder now if it's almost more of a cultural thing.

I think it was when I was growing up, Like, you don't necessarily have to believe in it, but it's still a part of your life.

It's weird.

Do you think it's something that will always feature when new work?

Well, I suppose.

I don't know.

Let's say, like, what if it's there twenty fifteen, I'm writing about twenty forty or something like, I don't know how it's going to go.

There's so many more like non denominational schools now in Ireland, and you know, things are definitely changing.

But I guess if I was to write about like from twenty twenty five back then, it would be a part of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because like I said, it is just kind of it is very much part of just how I grew up and how I understand the world.

So I don't know how i'd delete that from my brain.

It'd be hard.

It probably would be helpful for.

Me, But I don't know.

How do you think you'd ever be able to write about somewhere that wasn't rural Island.

I'm not talking about your capability as a writer.

I mean, would you want to?

I don't know, would I want well, I don't know.

I mean because I'm living in Brighton now.

I think realistically I wouldn't be surprised if at some point I was writing about Brighton.

Probably if I wasn't living there anymore, i'd be writing about it.

But I just think realistically it would be an Irish person in Brighton, or maybe someone from other country in Ireland, you know, because again it's the same thing, like that's how I I am Irish, that's how I that's my lens, Like I understand the world from that context.

So I think if I want to have like a level of authenticity in what I'm writing, I might have to keep that in And also it's just like this, the way the speech and everything, Like I can write from an Irish voice, could I, like convincingly write from the perspective of someone from New York.

I don't.

I doubt it, Like I could try it, but I don't know.

I love but this is it.

I love the people of rural Ireland, and I love and the landscape and everything like.

That's very very compelling to me.

So I don't see myself moving away from it yet, but never say never.

I'm intrigued.

But the two places that you mentioned in this book, because they're fictional places, right, yeah, why did you choose to fictionalize places?

Because the one in Sunbourne fictional as well, Like they're roughly I would say, like Sunburn is in some type of place in West Cork, where I'm from.

This is in some sort of place in Kerry, which is next to Cork.

But do you know the main reason is like it just would be too much research if it was a real town, and if the source material is so sparse, I wouldn't want to be like this character went to the chemist and then someone go I lived through that and the chemist was in the next town.

We didn't have a chemist, like, it's just too much admin and too much research basically, And I think sometimes that can you can spend an awful lot of time doing research and it's fascinating, but that's not for me.

That's not where like the creative fulfillment comes from.

So I don't want there to be too many roadblocks in the way the words, you know, So it's just easier if it's.

Fictional, feel safe, it's just lazier.

I want to ask you about obsession because it's a very big theme in this book.

What do you think drew you to write in about obsession?

Well, it's so basically this is where we've got to be careful because it's spoilers.

Yeah, exactly.

With Sunburn, people have noted that that is like romance, but it is a very obsessive and this, you know, there is undoubtedly obsession and he breth upon it.

But for me, it always comes from the initial feeling is longing and these characters who are just so desperate to have something that's out of reach to them, and if you keep something out of reach for long enough, it will become obsession.

So I'm never really starting from it is always yearning at its core, for me, like I said, with Sunburn, it was kind of romance veering into obsessions.

So this time I did think, Okay, let me start more in the obsession of it, or the very very intense yearning, and then see what that veers into.

Which I won't say because it's a spoiler, but yeah, it's It's just it's so funny.

I just kind of it seems to be a default for me to go to that obsessive place, but fascinating to just keep something out of reach of a character and just to see what they'll do and how they'll feel and what is the reaction to just never getting what you want, you know.

Yeah, the links that they'll go to.

Yeah, I'll play it safe and not continue talking about the obsession in this book.

But I think in Sunburn there's so much yearning and it's probably the safer.

Part of upset.

It would be a part of obsession.

There's a lot of like chat online about about yearning and whether we've kind of lost the art of yearning.

Do you would you say that we have?

Well, I don't know.

That's all the buzz now, isn't it.

Yeah, everyone's kind of talking about yearning.

I happened, because that's what I write my books about.

I don't know.

I think that people won't be saying that in a few months.

It's just like it's just a trend, isn't it.

I don't know.

I feel like in you know, in books and in TV and culture and stuff, but I feel like in I don't know if it's because we now have social media and you know, it's it's like instant messaging and stuff like that.

We don't feel like wherever without the person, whether people have kind of.

But you know then like when you're first seeing someone and they message you and you message them right, and then if they take ten minutes, you then are like, it's hell, I have to wait fifteen minutes now.

That's like the modern yearning, and that gap between the messages getting bigger and bigger because you're all playing it cool, like yeah, that's such an intense and the phone goals lights up.

You're like, but then you have to wait.

That waiting is awful, and then you to how long is it going to be till they text me back?

You know, they're all these funny little games like it is that modern yearning?

Maybe think so yeah, yeah, bye, yeah, it's just you need to look out for it because it's there.

It is the Yeah, you're right.

No, I think as well.

When you see somebody read your message and then they don't reply and you're just left on right, Oh, it's really upsetting.

Was it freeing to not have to deal with social media and phones and all that kind of stuff?

Yeah?

I just I think, like, but neither of these stories would work with access to mobile phones or the Internet or anything like that.

It would just kind of I think they'd both be wrapped up very very quickly.

So I have found with these two books, at least those they wouldn't be helpful devices at all.

They just kind of prevent the story from being told.

I might be interested to try it about it one day maybe, but not currently.

Maybe i'd be interested, like to right now about like BIEBO or MSN or like the things we don't have anymore because they seem more fabulous because they're gone.

To nudge somebody onsen to get into.

Yeah yeah, or was that just because I'm a loser, Yeah.

Things like that.

Yeah.

I want to ask you about writing influences.

Who would you say are your biggest writing influences?

You know what were the books and writers that you were kind of looking up to when you were looking to when you were kind of starting out on you writing journey.

Do you know what, I'm very much the person where like whatever, the last book I've read is I Go, that's my favorite book.

So like I would have to say that everything I read definitely influences my writing, and I think I can be kind of impressionable.

Like I remember once I read Shy by Max Porter, and everything I was writing for the next day after that, I actually was like, I'm gonna have to take a break from writing because it was so that's a book from the perspective of like a young teenage boy in a very very difficult situation, and I was writing from his point of view, and I was like, well, I'm just copying Max Porter, so it's just need to stop.

So yeah, So all that to say, I think everything I read is very it comes out in the works somehow.

But the writers that I really admire, I've always loved Jeffrey Jennety's like everything he's written, I just think he's amazing.

I love Claire Keegan.

She's so good at like she says so much in so few words.

She's very very very good.

Love Colin Tobin of C I love so late in the day.

I think had that one that's her newest one.

I think.

I love Coluin Tobin.

I love Orla Macki's book Mouthing I thought was brilliant.

Yeah, it's really good any any thing though, genuinely that I read.

I can see the I'm not like a hater really with books too much, like I can kind of see the good and pretty much everything.

So yeah, it's all inspiring in some way or another.

I love that I am aware of time, and I do want everyone to have an opportunity to ask a question, and I do finish the podcast with asking for a recommendation.

But I did.

I'm really cringe and I prepared a game.

You're up for a game in your life?

What the game?

So I've just got a few questions for you.

And it's based on stuff that I've seen online about your books, so there's no kind of specific This is a bit of a chaotic game, but I hope you like it.

So my first question, which character is this good Reads review talking about?

So it's name you would have loved.

Good Luck Babe by Chapel Rohan.

Oh, it's Lucy or a Susannah.

Which one Susannah is Susanna?

Which of your novels is this quote from a tiny little detail that perhaps she doesn't think I will notice, but I notice everything.

I feel everything you wrote it?

Oh my God, really testing you know?

Which of your novels is this reviewer talking about?

If Holy by King Princess and take Me to Church by Josia had a literary baby, This would be it.

You birth the partners?

No?

Oh, God, just to say, I don't go on good Reads ever, so I don't have anything the same very good things.

A book talker listed Sunburn in her top five makeup removers.

But what quote did she reference that can get all your makeup off?

As in she's crying?

Oh?

What quote from Sunburn did she reference?

The only quote realistically that I know off by heart, and that I see a lot to be with her as a sin, to be without her as a tragedy.

Yeah.

And the last one, which of your novels is this reviewer referring to supporting women's rights and women's wrongs?

Is that he bred upon it?

But it could have been either.

Lastly, before we get into audience questions.

I love to finish by asking for a recommendation.

And you have already mentioned a lot of books that you enjoy, but is there anything culturally, any books, TV film, anything that you've been enjoying recently.

I would recommend because we've been talking a lot about obsession.

The book This Immaculate Body, if anyone's read that, it's brilliant, and I read it while I was writing this, and it's about this woman who is a cleaner and she cleans for this guy who she's never met.

She's cleaned for him for years, but she's never met him.

She knows all these intimate details about him because she's in his gaff like twice a week every week.

And you meet her at a point where she is convinced that their soulmates, and she's like trying to orchestrate how they'll meet because she's like, well, I'm already in love with you, so when you meet me, that's it, Like we're going to be in love.

And she is obsessed, unhinged, and like it's so fascinating the lengths that she goes to to try and get her man.

It's very, very, very good.

So it's called This immaculate body.

That's my recommendation.

Love that I need to get a copy.

Does anybody want to ask a question?

No, Kathy?

Okay?

Should I come down with it?

This is there's no dignified way of getting up and down?

Okay, yeah, so I love somebody.

This question is actually about someone of not attempts to be the other one yet.

But you left the book pretty open ended, and I just wanted to ask wizard intention behind leaving it open ended.

I mean, it was kind of hopeful, but it was open ended and it felt deliberate, So just what to ask why that was?

Well?

I think one of the main reasons is their relationship is so up and down, isn't it like it?

I don't think it would have been believable if I said and it all worked out, or if I had said and they never saw each other again, because it's so up and down and you never really know what's going to happen with them.

I thought that did more justice to their journey.

And also I like books that when you finish reading it, you're then thinking like, oh, what's next?

Or you know, I like books that leave you thinking.

So I didn't want to say either way, what happens.

Maybe I'm leaving it open first sequel maybe not, No, more likely, but you never know.

But yeah, it was more just to do like the relationship justice and to finish it kind of the way it had always gone.

Thank you, yes.

Hi.

Yeah, So I've got quite a specific question about Sunburn.

Specifically, there's a point towards the end where Lucy's receiving the letters from Susannah again and she points out that Susannah O'shay, those initials are SOS.

I wanted to know if that was planned, if that came to you in the moment while writing it that because she I think she says something like my soul has been saved after getting this letter off of years after they last talked.

I just wanted to know if that comparison was planned or if it just kind of came as we were writing.

Yeah, her name was Susannah first, and then I thought of SOS and I was like, Okay, what can her last name be?

Basically, unluckily, loads of Irish names are all something and I think Susannah O'Shea is such a got a beautiful girl, such a fabulous name.

So like her first name came first and then I was like, okay, I'm gonna have to work this in now somewhere.

Okay, thank you so much, thank you.

I don't know how I gonna get to you.

Okay.

So how it works is the same person designed both of these covers, which I love because it's the same fond and they both have like the block like they definitely look like a pair, which is fab I'm very lucky that for my publishers have both in both instances sent me variations of these so like I was sent a few different versions of the Sunburn cover, same like color, same fan, same image, but just you know, slightly different versions, and then the same with this one.

I was sent a few variations and they ask for my input, which is lovely.

But that's not always the way.

I know people who have been published by other publishers who like with the US covers of these books, they just send me the US covers.

They're like here it is, by the way, Luckily, I love them.

They're beautiful covers.

But yeah, I think very very quite unique in that they asked me for my input, but I think they're fabulous.

I'm glad.

I don't have too much to say because obviously it's such a skill and I wouldn't know what to do.

God forbid anyone who was like, what would you actually like on the cover?

It be like, I have no idea.

So yeah, that's kind of how it works.

Obviously there's so much more to it, but that's as much involvement as I have for that.

Yeah, Like if they send me like four different ones, let's say, they'll be like, which one is your favorite, and we'll take that into consideration.

It might not necessarily be what they go with, but I think it's just to have another opinion in the mix, which is very nice.

Yeah, I feel lucky that I get asked to Yes, that's normal.

Yeah, yeah, that it was intentional just because I enjoy writing about those kind of more yuckier things and making them seem alluring.

That's like just fun for me to do.

And I was kind of surprised that I think that is my writing style.

I didn't really know what my writing style was when I wrote Sunburn because it was the only book I'd written.

But then when I wrote he Birth Upon It, like that visceral sort of romanticizing of visceral things definitely followed me.

So yeah, I would say it's intentional.

And then the other part of your question was about finding like a narrative voice.

Is that right?

I think I just try as much as I can to see them as real people.

Like by the end of each book, the characters feel very, very very real to me, and then you know, I take like a year's distance from it and I'm like, oh, I forget what's even in the book.

But like with Lucy for example, like she's like, what fifteen at the start, and so I was trying to put myself back just in the shoes of a fifteen year old girl.

It's such an up and down time, loads of insecurity, very opinionated person.

So yeah, I think just leaning into like the parts of them that feel real like creates a voice.

And also with this one, because there's four narrators, I found that giving them each their own elements of speech was very helpful.

So they all have their own little habits, they all have their own little phrases that they say all the time, and that just helped me separate them and like and see them as separate to each other and make them feel that bit more real.

I hope that answered your question.

Thank you.

Nobody asks have a question.

So with Sunburn, I think the narrative voice in which you write is so visceral that as I was reading it, it felt like a screenplay, which is a massive compliment, like a beautiful screenplay, because I could see everything in my head as I was reading, which immediately I was thinking, God, would this be a TV show?

Would this be a movie?

Who would it be?

So in your ideal world if this was adapted, who would you want to be directing it?

Do you see it's a TV show a film?

What actors?

Actresses?

Do you have an idea?

Do you know what?

People ask me this and I don't really have a good answer for it.

It's so funny, I think, because it's it's definitely a different skill set and a different discipline to create a piece of film or television that I just I don't understand how it all works, so I don't give much thought to it.

I think it would be nice to have just maybe Irish actors or someone who can really do a good Irish accent, because I think I sometimes I hear them and I'm like, that's fishy.

I don't believe it.

So someone who can do a very good Irish accent that's all I would ask for.

Thank you, But.

There is a TV series of film.

Is this something that's been optioned?

Who knows?

Who can say.

I've started reading it and it's beautiful.

First of all, thank you.

I just wondered if you were going to write another book after this, and not to sound like your agent, but and can we expect another one?

Well, like I finished writing this probably this time last year, so I've been writing that whole time because it's well, it's my job now, so I have to keep that at but also it's my favorite hobby.

I love writing so much that I think I'll always do even if if I decide not to pursue publication anymore, I'll always write.

So I've been like writing all year.

Any downtime I have, I'm writing.

So hopefully there'll be more.

Hopefully yes, please, yeah, thank you?

Any last questions?

Okay, Hi, I'm curious about your mindset when you were writing Sunburn, as it was your first novel, Like did you have this story in your mind that you just said, like this needs to be on paper or were you thinking, oh I want to start writing, what should it be?

Like, I'm curious how it came to you.

At the very beginning stages.

I was, well, actually, I remember it was New Year's Day and I was on my way home.

I'd been at a party in Dublin and I was in a bad way because I'd get all the way down to Cork is like over three hours, and I was like, holy God, that all this time on the train to slept my mind drift and I just had this idea of like, what if there was two girls living in a village like mine in like nineties two thousands, how would that play out?

Basically, like what would their story be?

And I didn't really ruminate on it too much.

I kind of started like on my notes app then like just writing out whatever I thought of, and then it was like my hobby for a couple of months, and then it was lockdown.

So then I was like, well, here's my new hobby that I'm doing this book.

So I just had all this time.

I didn't really have like a structure at any point at all, but I just kind of kept going and going and going with the story and then it became what it is.

So yeah, I hope that answered your question.

Thank you.

I wish my hunk of a brain would come up with an idea like that, so if the only time I did that.

Lastly, thank you so much, Chloe le Bron's give a wrong Chloe.

Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone,