February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
What is your latest book about?
In essence “I’ll Know it When I See It: A Daughter’s Search For Home In Ireland” is about finding that illusive place called “home.” It’s also about taking a chance on Ireland, selling up a beloved property on Fire Island, buying an old bang of a house over here and restoring it. It’s also, God knows, about the ghosts we carry around with us, day in and day out. Incidentally, that illusive place called “home” remains illusive.
What is your writing routine? Are there ideal conditions?
Whether I’m in Ireland or New York, I keep the same writing day, Monday to Friday from 10 to 3. I get up around 8 o’clock and have tea. In New York I go out to some “beanerie” for breakfast where I read the New York Times and the Irish Times. In both countries I go to a table (not a desk) and write with a half-hour break for lunch, when I watch television news or (in New York) listen to NPR. In Ireland, I listen to RTE or BBC 4.
I have no ideal conditions in which to write. I can write anywhere. In New York, I work at a table in our bedroom at a 2-foot-square space surrounded by books and manuscripts. In Durrus, I work at the big table.
What advice to you have for aspiring writers?
Just do it and do it every day. Don’t talk it to death.
Name books that are memorable in terms of your reading pleasure?
“Ulysses,” always “Ulysses,” and, of course, “Dubliners,” Derek Jarman’s diary, “Modern Nature,” and “Noel Coward Diaries.”
What book are you currently reading?
Ian McEwan’s “Saturday” and Joanna Lumley’s memoir about her house in London
Is there a book you wish you had written?
Not a book so much but I’d love to be able to write short stories like J.D. Salinger. “For Esme, with Love and Squalor” comes to mind. Also, Brian Friel’s play “Wonderful Tennessee.” It captures what the modern middle-class Irish person is like today. It was a disastrous failure in New York (four performances) because Americans still have an outdated “auld” view of Ireland (Lughnasa’s Mundy sisters dancing on the table come to mind). They do not want to see what Ireland has become.
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Name a book that you were pleasantly surprised by?
Ian McEwan’s “Atonement.” It came out in 2002, the same time my memoir came out in hardback. Since the books were always were reviewed at the same time, I felt I should read it. When I did, I was thrilled.
If you could meet one author, living or dead, who would it be?
I’d love to have dinner with the late drama critic and essayist Kenneth Tynan.
What book changed your life?
It would be the printed script of Dennis Potter’s BBC series “The Singing Detective.” I was just beginning to write things other than diaries and I thought: “Boy, if I could just get it down in real words just like Potter.” I try to do this every day.
What is your favorite spot in Ireland?
Right here with my lovely cat, Thomasina, walking the fields on a green summer night.
You’re Irish if . . .
You think the Celtic Tiger will find you happiness; if you love the BBC TV series “Give My Head Peace.”
(Alice Carey will speak at Barnes & Noble, 396 Avenue of the Americas (at 8th Street), Greenwich Village, on Monday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m.)