Behind Blue Eyes follows Joe as he struggles against the odds to turn his life around after falling into addiction. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?

The inspiration came after a working involvement within the field of addiction and treatment, seeing and being a part of delivering different models of therapeutic community, which in Australia is quite varied across the sectors. I had a six month period living in the midlands of Ireland so I took the idea and the story just seemed to develop. There is often trauma behind addiction and a host of others issues so I in part wanted to try and show that in a spiritual sense it’s an individual journey that crosses boundaries of class and personality. It’s a shared experience.

Joe Marley is an interesting and well developed character. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

Well I have also worked in schools and had my own formative experiences of institutions and education in a time when abuses seemed to run freely so for Joe the links are there. He’s a smart fellow but some events in life ultimately are beyond us to think our way through. Again it came back to Joe’s relationships and the power to draw from a different mythology, if you like.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

The themes I most wanted to explore were of course the whole recovery from tragic loss, betrayal and the power of emotions to set Joe on a destructive but ultimately redemptive course. Community and connection were another with I guess, the power of love and kindness to ultimately restore the balance with some kind of renewed vision for life. I also was quite struck by a comment from James Hilman, the rather famous psychologist who would often say that the ‘gods of Greece and Rome are alive and well and living on 42nd street BUT, the Mythologies of old are now the psychopathologies of today’.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

I’m currently working on a novels – a part of this series, titled Mary’s Boys – The Immaculate Misconception. It’s a story about Joe’s childhood experiences as an Irish catholic immigrant growing up in Australia in the 1970’s. I expect it to be available for publishing in August 2022.

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