Blog Archives
An Inside Track
The Maker’s Name is a suspenseful saga of family betrayal and corporate intrigue that unfolds against the backdrop of Ireland’s economic boom, where two brothers clash over their inheritance. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I’ve always taken a strong interest in the way businesses develop, particularly family businesses. I worked for a number of years in the Irish Industrial Development Authority (IDA) where I was able to gain good insight into many such scenarios. The IDA gave me an inside track.
The characters are complex and often morally ambiguous. Can you talk about your process for developing such compelling characters?
I have often clashed with strong personalities in my career, which also took in multinationals like Colgate-Palmolive Company and Shell Oil. There one would come face to face with individuals whose ambition knew no bounds, and against whom one would need strong defences; rising through the ranks in big business is often a zero-sum game. The process of developing such characters for the novel consisted of little more than remembering back to the details of the personalities and behaviour of the people concerned.
The novel features a mix of dark humor and bursts of violence. How did you balance these elements to maintain tension without overshadowing the story’s deeper themes?
I have always been an avid reader. This, I believe, has encouraged me to a deep study of human nature whenever I have found it. I have also taken inspiration from the very best: Ernest Hemingway, Ian McEwan, Graham Greene, Robert Louis Stevenson, Auberon Waugh, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Claire Keegan, Anthony Trollope, Tom Wolfe, William Makepeace Thackery, Vladimir Nabokov, and many, many more of history’s superlative novelists. Not forgetting, of course, James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, for the style.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I am working on an outline, and have written about 30,000 words, of a novel that’s inspired by the kind of things that happened in Ireland in the 1980s, the period in which Claire Keegan’s novella, Small Things Like These, is set. According to one commentator, this book sells a thousand books a week, every week. The film version, starring Cillian Murphy, has just been released, to critical acclaim. My book will be ready in the first quarter of 2025.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Literary, historical, Irish family saga fiction, for grownups
Lucid, engaging prose covering half a century of a provincial Irish business family, which could be microcosmic of the nation, from a first-time author.
The Considine brothers, Rudi and Gus, are at war.
Their father, Malachi, has died in a ‘freak accident’. But is there such a thing as a freak accident? When Rudi attempts to grab Gus’s inheritance there’s a real prospect of human blood appearing on the Hawthorne Meats slaughterhouse floor. Enter Cosgrave, a solicitor with expensive tastes, and Toomarood, the banker with an eye to making money outside of his day job. Mix in the ‘free’ energy device, after experts have stated that the promoters are suffering from long-term, severe self-delusion. Does this all make up a catastrophe waiting to happen?
How will Gus’s childhood friend, Raymond Quinn, his partner, Kaarina, and their children, be able to deal with him being placed under an exit ban in China because of his part in a pyramid scheme that has defrauded Chinese small investors? Is Gus really the nice guy everyone thinks he is? His activities as a ‘celebrity butcher’ might suggest otherwise. Does Rudi go too far by defrauding Quinn senior and his business partner through the use of a shadow company?
Is Rudi capable of murder?
And Rudi’s wife, Penny – whose side is she on?
Treachery hangs over this story of the pressures and tensions, both personal and commercial, of Celtic-Tiger era Ireland, especially when that edifice is destroyed in the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.
For Rudi, the payback from Gus and Raymond is severe indeed.
Loss and Change
Shanghaied follows a printer from New England in the 1800s who wakes up in a ship’s hold after being drugged and kidnapped, now forced to work aboard the Atalanta. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I wrote the first chapter of Shanghaied as an exercise for a writing class in 2004. That chapter sat in a drawer for a long time. I picked it up again after my wife died; after I sold my home and bought my boat and literally sailed away. It became important to me when I realized I was writing about a man stolen from his life when my life felt stolen from me. I didn’t know how either of us was going to make it back from “out there,” from horizons of grief.
Eamon’s story starts out with a terrifying abduction and turns into a journey of acceptance and self-discovery while holding on to his determination to return home. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
We all face loss and change. And finding your way “back” can be a hero or heroine’s journey for anyone. If we are to live our journey, if we are to not-die, it is incumbent upon us to pay attention. And even if we do return, we and the place we have returned to will have (and should have) changed. Time and life go on. And we must learn to be okay with that, with change.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
That the perspective the sea teaches is humility. That we are part of something much larger than ourselves. That beauty is essential. That we can persevere. That love is a quality, not a quantity. That to be anything, living must include everything.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
Shanghaied is my first book. While it is a fiction, many of its scenes come from my actual lived experiences. Hopefully, by spinning those experiences into this tale and these characters, the story is about all of us more than about me. If a reader feels “lost at sea,” I hope Eamon’s story will help him/her/them. There are a few characters who have sailed over the horizon beyond Eamon’s story, and I could explore their adventures. Or maybe my experiences could come back to my memoir. But before any of those possibilities, I need to see if I can launch Shanghaied into some success and a future of its own.
Author Links: Goodreads | Website | Amazon
Eamon’s bitterness nearly consumes him, until he finds the beauty of this planet undeniable and essential and joins the brotherhood of the sea. Profoundly changed by a journey filled with perseverance, discovery, and love, what will he find if he makes it home again?
LITERARY TITAN 