0:00:00 > 0:00:00who's visiting the South for the Winter OIympics.
0:00:00 > 0:00:03Now on BBC News, Talking Books.
0:00:03 > 0:00:06Welcome to Talking Books here at the Cheltenham literary festival.
0:00:06 > 0:00:08A celebration of more than 1000 of the world's finest writers,
0:00:08 > 0:00:16poets, performers and politicians.
0:00:16 > 0:00:19Today I'm talking to the bestselling Irish writer Roddy Doyle.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21He made his name 30 years ago with his debut novel
0:00:21 > 0:00:24The Commitments, which was later turned into a hugely successful film
0:00:24 > 0:00:28and then a stage show.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Since then he has gone on to write more than 20 books
0:00:31 > 0:00:34for adults and children, including Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha,
0:00:34 > 0:00:35which won the Booker Prize in 1993.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38His latest novel is called Smile, and in it, he says, he hopes
0:00:38 > 0:00:48to shock and surprise people.
0:01:01 > 0:01:03Roddy Doyle, you have been writing for three decades.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07So there is a lot to talk about.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10But I'd like to start bang up-to-date with your latest novel
0:01:10 > 0:01:13Smile, which is about a middle-aged man, Victor, looking back
0:01:13 > 0:01:15on his schooldays as dark and disturbing memories
0:01:15 > 0:01:19begin to emerge.
0:01:19 > 0:01:27What was the starting point for the novel?
0:01:27 > 0:01:29I went to a Christian Brothers school in Dublin, started
0:01:30 > 0:01:33in 1971, when I was 13.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36And that is a school run by the Catholic Church?
0:01:36 > 0:01:37Yes, by the Christian Brothers, they are called.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39And a lot...
0:01:39 > 0:01:49For more than 100 years, a lot of working-class,
0:01:51 > 0:01:54lower-middle-class boys would have gone to these schools.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57It was a strange place to go into, having been to a state
0:01:57 > 0:01:59school at primary level, to go into this very violent, weird,
0:02:00 > 0:02:01eccentric environment.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04Quite early on, a Christian brother, probably in his late 30s,
0:02:04 > 0:02:09I don't really know, wearing the soutane, like a dress,
0:02:09 > 0:02:10at the front of the room.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12Friday afternoon we were trying
0:02:12 > 0:02:13to persuade him not to give us homework.
0:02:13 > 0:02:21And he said to me, Roddy Doyle, I can never resist your smile.
0:02:21 > 0:02:23And the ground, after a second or so, hoping
0:02:23 > 0:02:24he hadn't said that to me,
0:02:24 > 0:02:27the ground in front of me just opened and yawned.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30In a way, I hoped I could fall into it, because I knew
0:02:30 > 0:02:31there were consequences.
0:02:31 > 0:02:38He had said this to me in front of 33, 34 of the boys,
0:02:39 > 0:02:40and that I was going to be branded.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43And the word gay did not exist, really.
0:02:43 > 0:02:53It was not in the air in the way it is now in Ireland in 1971,
0:02:56 > 0:02:59so I was the queer, I was the homo.
0:02:59 > 0:03:01And just to be clear, that man never touched me,
0:03:01 > 0:03:03never told me to stay back after class.
0:03:03 > 0:03:04There was nothing overtly sinister about it,
0:03:05 > 0:03:06but it was so inappropriate.
0:03:06 > 0:03:09I did not know the word back then, but it was so inappropriate.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12I made more of it, much more of it in the novel than actually occurred,
0:03:12 > 0:03:14but it is one of those memories.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17If a memory has a camera angle, it is the exact same memory
0:03:17 > 0:03:20for the last 50 years, or so, just less than 50 years.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22And it did not haunt me.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25I got a bit of slagging about it, as we say in Ireland.
0:03:25 > 0:03:30And now and again somebody would say smile at him, smile at him.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33And I would be telling them no in words to that effect.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37But the memory was there.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40I think because of all the stories that had been in the air in Ireland
0:03:40 > 0:03:44over the past couple of decades about abuse and the Catholic Church.
0:03:44 > 0:03:51I thought I will somehow or other take that little moment in my life
0:03:51 > 0:03:53and somehow fashion a story.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56I was hoping I could surprise or maybe shock people by telling
0:03:56 > 0:03:57this particular story.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00I wonder if you might just read a short extract that does involve
0:04:00 > 0:04:10the incident you have been talking about.
0:04:11 > 0:04:13And this violent man with the Desperate Dan hair liked me.
0:04:13 > 0:04:14I knew this.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16Everybody knew this, because something he said more
0:04:16 > 0:04:18than two years before, when I was 13.
0:04:18 > 0:04:21Victor Ford, I can never resist your smile.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24It was like a line from a film in a very wrong place.
0:04:25 > 0:04:33I knew I was doomed.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37It had been one of Murphy's happy days and we were at him to let us
0:04:37 > 0:04:38off homework for the weekend.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41It was Friday afternoon and the sun was heating the room,
0:04:41 > 0:04:46spreading the smile.
0:04:46 > 0:04:47-- smell.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50The school was right beside the sea and we could hear the tide
0:04:50 > 0:04:51behind the yard wall.
0:04:51 > 0:04:53Go on, brother, s'il vous plait, brother, we'll pray
0:04:54 > 0:04:55for you on Sunday, brother.
0:04:55 > 0:04:56He listened to us and grinned.
0:04:56 > 0:04:58It was a grin, not a smile.
0:04:58 > 0:05:00The word inappropriate did not appear until years later,
0:05:00 > 0:05:01but the grin was inappropriate.
0:05:01 > 0:05:02It was all inappropriate.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05He was being taunted and teased by a room of boys
0:05:05 > 0:05:06and he was loving it.
0:05:06 > 0:05:07Then he said it.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09Victor Ford, I can never resist your smile.
0:05:09 > 0:05:10There was silence.
0:05:10 > 0:05:11There was silence.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14As you said, you were never abused but do you think any
0:05:14 > 0:05:15of your friends were?
0:05:15 > 0:05:18I have asked several people I would have met over the years,
0:05:18 > 0:05:19do you think anything happened?
0:05:19 > 0:05:20And they were, oh, yes.
0:05:20 > 0:05:22You were beaten, weren't you?
0:05:22 > 0:05:23I was yes.
0:05:23 > 0:05:24But I was one of many.
0:05:24 > 0:05:25Yes, I was.
0:05:25 > 0:05:26Corporal punishment was legal back then.
0:05:27 > 0:05:28It was here, too.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31It was made illegal I think in 1981, when I just started my own
0:05:31 > 0:05:32career as a teacher.
0:05:32 > 0:05:34So in primary school, I would have been slapped occasionally,
0:05:34 > 0:05:36but everybody was slapped.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39When I went to this place there was a level of violence
0:05:39 > 0:05:40that was extraordinary.
0:05:40 > 0:05:41It was unpredictable.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43A teacher could explode at any moment.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46And it would involve...
0:05:46 > 0:05:56A lot of the teachers had leather straps.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00Three on each hand would leave you shaking for a day, at least.
0:06:00 > 0:06:03I recall one teacher who was not even a teacher of mine came
0:06:03 > 0:06:06into the room and I can't even remember what we were doing.
0:06:06 > 0:06:07Something utterly harmless.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10None of his business.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14As a teacher myself years later, none of his business,
0:06:14 > 0:06:18hauled out four of us and I was cute enough to get to the back
0:06:18 > 0:06:22of the queue, thinking he would be exhausted by the time he came to me,
0:06:22 > 0:06:23but he was not.
0:06:23 > 0:06:24I will never forget the pain.
0:06:24 > 0:06:26Never, ever forget the pain.
0:06:26 > 0:06:30The desk had metal legs and I remember putting my hands
0:06:30 > 0:06:37on the legs to cool the hands down.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39It worked to a degree, but my hands were still sweating.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42Later on in the day, you know.
0:06:42 > 0:06:47I did nothing to deserve it.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49I feel bad saying this because there were terrific
0:06:49 > 0:06:50teachers there as well.
0:06:50 > 0:06:51You are almost 60.
0:06:51 > 0:06:52Smile is your 11th novel.
0:06:52 > 0:07:02Why write about it now?
0:07:02 > 0:07:05I really don't know is the honest answer, it is an honest answer.
0:07:05 > 0:07:06I don't know.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09When I started the book, I think it is memory.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11I suppose as we get older we gather more memories.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14Our children get older and memories become vital and it is a strange
0:07:14 > 0:07:17moment when you realise a memory you think you share with someone
0:07:17 > 0:07:19is not a shared memory.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23It is also fascinating.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27I listen to people I know who were in the room at the same
0:07:27 > 0:07:29time something occurred and I am sitting back listening
0:07:29 > 0:07:37to a different version, but it is their version.
0:07:37 > 0:07:40So memory and its fragility has always interested me and I think
0:07:40 > 0:07:41more so as I get older.
0:07:41 > 0:07:43There is that.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45Also the notion of friendship among men, which to me is one
0:07:45 > 0:07:47of the great sources of joy.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49When I started writing about schooldays I knew at least
0:07:49 > 0:07:51a big chunk of the book was here.
0:07:51 > 0:07:52Has it been cathartic?
0:07:52 > 0:07:54No, not at all.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56That is an easy answer!
0:07:56 > 0:08:03I don't believe in that stuff!
0:08:03 > 0:08:13There has been, and you mentioned it earlier, there has been talking
0:08:15 > 0:08:16recent years about institutionalised
0:08:16 > 0:08:17child abuse in Ireland
0:08:17 > 0:08:20and I wondered, as an Irish writer, did you feel a duty
0:08:20 > 0:08:21or responsibility to address the issue?
0:08:21 > 0:08:22Not at all.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26I do not think in those terms and if I had a list of social
0:08:26 > 0:08:28issues I now must address, I would be...
0:08:28 > 0:08:31Oh, way off the track that I should be on when I am writing a novel.
0:08:31 > 0:08:32No.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34I don't feel any responsibility whatsoever.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37But having decided to write a book that included this subject,
0:08:37 > 0:08:39for example, or dealt with this subject matter, my responsibility
0:08:39 > 0:08:44was to do it as well as I possibly could and also to do it in a way
0:08:44 > 0:08:49as a novelist that could still surprise.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52I had just written a film script recently about a homeless woman,
0:08:52 > 0:08:57but she is a woman who happens to be homeless, if that makes sense,
0:08:57 > 0:08:59and that is the plot.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02But without the woman, you know, she is at the core of the story.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05But she is much more important than the adjective that
0:09:05 > 0:09:13describes her currently.
0:09:13 > 0:09:17Ireland seems to be a constant source of inspiration for you.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20Roddy Doyle books don't tend to travel much beyond Ireland.
0:09:20 > 0:09:21Why is that?
0:09:21 > 0:09:23Well, PG Wodehouse's novels do not stray much
0:09:23 > 0:09:33beyond his back garden, really, do they?
0:09:34 > 0:09:37I have written one novel that was set in America,
0:09:37 > 0:09:41because it had to be because the protagonist got out
0:09:41 > 0:09:44of Ireland, so in a way it is about him getting his
0:09:44 > 0:09:45way back into Ireland.
0:09:45 > 0:09:48It is a small country, but, there is more than enough to write about.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51The Commitments, a story about a bunch of young
0:09:51 > 0:09:53kids forming a band, it is a universal story,
0:09:53 > 0:09:56it just happens to be set in Dublin.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58That is where the ice is nice and thick for me.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03If I'm walking across the lake, I'm not going to fall in,
0:10:03 > 0:10:04because I know the accent.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06I know the corner they are on.
0:10:06 > 0:10:08I know what shop they go in to buy something.
0:10:08 > 0:10:09I know that shop.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11And that is my research.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14I have always lived in Dublin and I have always lived
0:10:14 > 0:10:15in a certain corner of Dublin.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18The north-east of Dublin.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22Even though I might not mention it, I know the sea is very close
0:10:22 > 0:10:26to where all the characters are.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30And I know the seagulls can be heard in the morning and in the evening.
0:10:30 > 0:10:36And I sometimes mention them.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39And I not the geese coming at this time of year
0:10:39 > 0:10:40and they leave in April.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42We love seeing them going over our heads.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44You mention your first novel The Commitments, which you wrote
0:10:44 > 0:10:45while you were teaching.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48You taught English and geography in a secondary school for 14 years.
0:10:48 > 0:10:50Am I right your pupils nicknamed you Punk Doyle?
0:10:50 > 0:10:51Yes.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53Why was that?
0:10:53 > 0:10:57I had an earring and I wore Doc Martens and it was 1979,
0:10:57 > 0:11:03that kind of era, so punk was big.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06I got my own classroom and there was a poster of the Clash.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10And I added the Smiths.
0:11:10 > 0:11:14And I had a friend who promoted gigs and he gave me a poster so I thought
0:11:14 > 0:11:16it was a good alternative to Jane Austen or
0:11:16 > 0:11:17somebody like that.
0:11:17 > 0:11:19Or the map of Ireland.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23You know, Jane Austen on one side and the map of Ireland.
0:11:23 > 0:11:24There is a vision of hell!
0:11:24 > 0:11:26It was just an alternative.
0:11:26 > 0:11:29Doyle is a common name in Ireland, the sixth most common name
0:11:29 > 0:11:36and there were four Doyles on the staff.
0:11:36 > 0:11:38One of the others was called Dozy.
0:11:38 > 0:11:40So I think I got away quite well there.
0:11:40 > 0:11:41I would rather be called Punk Doyle.
0:11:41 > 0:11:43While you were teaching you were writing.
0:11:43 > 0:11:45Had you always wanted to be a writer?
0:11:45 > 0:11:48The itch was there and I did a little bit of writing
0:11:48 > 0:11:51when I was a student but teaching was the great opportunity.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54I did not have a family at the time, so as a secondary teacher
0:11:54 > 0:11:56in Ireland I had June, July and August off,
0:11:56 > 0:11:58so that is a quarter of the year.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01And you are never more than seven weeks away from the mid-term break.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05So there was plenty of time, leaving aside evening time.
0:12:05 > 0:12:07So a great job to start off with.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11The first four novels were written while I was a teacher.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14The Commitments was self-published in 1987, about this group of young
0:12:14 > 0:12:17Dubliners who form a soul band.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20It became something of a cult classic.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23In no part due to the musician Elvis Costello.
0:12:23 > 0:12:29What was that about?
0:12:29 > 0:12:32Well, if I remember right, there was a very good music
0:12:32 > 0:12:33magazine called Hot Press.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36And they weren't impressed with the book.
0:12:36 > 0:12:44A bad review, an interview that was a bit of a disaster, as well.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47And that was a disappointment, because I liked Hot Press.
0:12:47 > 0:12:49I can't remember, some anniversary edition of Hot Press,
0:12:49 > 0:12:51they asked Elvis Costello to write, because he was living
0:12:51 > 0:12:54in Dublin at the time and they asked him to write
0:12:54 > 0:12:55something about his early years.
0:12:55 > 0:12:57In the article, I cannot remember the words,
0:12:57 > 0:13:00he said if you want to know what it was like read
0:13:00 > 0:13:01The Commitments.
0:13:01 > 0:13:02And that was a great endorsement.
0:13:02 > 0:13:05And of course the film, which came out in 1991,
0:13:05 > 0:13:06gave it even extra life.
0:13:06 > 0:13:07It was this tremendous success.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11What was it like for you?
0:13:11 > 0:13:21It was marvellous, but also overpowering.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27To go from being a teacher who has written books and, now and again,
0:13:27 > 0:13:29might be in a newspaper being interviewed, to being a very
0:13:29 > 0:13:32reluctant celebrity, for example, or a household name.
0:13:32 > 0:13:38I didn't like it.
0:13:38 > 0:13:40It was a little overpowering and I was worried at that stage
0:13:40 > 0:13:43I might be defined by this for the rest of my life,
0:13:43 > 0:13:45the man who wrote The Commitments.
0:13:45 > 0:13:50It is not a healthy way to be, at that stage of your life,
0:13:50 > 0:13:52to be almost consigned to it -
0:13:52 > 0:13:54the past before you begin.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57I felt a little bit that way when I won the Booker Prize.
0:13:57 > 0:14:04In 1993 you won the Booker Prize with Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha.
0:14:04 > 0:14:06Suddenly you are the literary equivalent of U2 in Ireland.
0:14:06 > 0:14:07For while, yes.
0:14:07 > 0:14:14I'm delighted that I won it and still am.
0:14:14 > 0:14:15A brilliant compliment to get.
0:14:15 > 0:14:18I thought I will never escape from this bloody thing, either.
0:14:18 > 0:14:19It seems mean-spirited.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21Aren't you lucky to be trying to escape from those
0:14:21 > 0:14:30two huge successes?
0:14:30 > 0:14:33I know I am lucky, but when I finish a book I almost throw it
0:14:33 > 0:14:35over my shoulder and get going on another one.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38I've relaxed a bit now in recent years, but at the time...
0:14:38 > 0:14:45I've written for children, too.
0:14:45 > 0:14:50The last few years, I go into a cafe in Dublin buying a coffee and a tall
0:14:50 > 0:14:55lad behind the counter with a big beard says, are you Roddy Doyle?
0:14:55 > 0:15:00I say, I am.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03He says, I loved the Giggler Treatment when I was a kid.
0:15:03 > 0:15:04A big adult, six foot seven.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06Tattooed.
0:15:06 > 0:15:07Covered.
0:15:07 > 0:15:09And he is telling me it is one of his favourite books.
0:15:09 > 0:15:11It is really lovely.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13I think that made me feel a bit gentler towards
0:15:13 > 0:15:14everything I have done.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17I suppose I am at that stage of my life or career where I don't
0:15:18 > 0:15:19feel I have to escape from the past.
0:15:19 > 0:15:21If somebody says I really like The Commitments,
0:15:21 > 0:15:24I will accept the compliment, rather than bat it away.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28One of the things that seems to me to define embodied
0:15:28 > 0:15:32One of the things that seems to me to define a Roddy Doyle
0:15:32 > 0:15:34novel is the dialogue, which is so realistic.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37I'm thinking of your second novel, The Snapper, which is about a young
0:15:37 > 0:15:38woman who gets pregnant outside of wedlock.
0:15:38 > 0:15:43You are there with her in the kitchen when she tells her parents.
0:15:43 > 0:15:45You are with her in the pub when she tells her friends.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48You make it seem and sound effortless.
0:15:48 > 0:15:49How much work really goes into it?
0:15:49 > 0:15:54A lot.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56It takes a lot of work to make something seem effortless.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59There is trial and error, stopping, starting.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02Taking out a word because it seems like you are tripping over it
0:16:03 > 0:16:05rather than reciting it.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09I take out a word and see if I can replace it,
0:16:09 > 0:16:09or rewrite the sentence completely.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11Are you always listening to people?
0:16:11 > 0:16:12Not professionally.
0:16:12 > 0:16:14In Dublin, often you do not have a choice.
0:16:14 > 0:16:17It is not an option.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21Silence as an entity is quite rare.
0:16:21 > 0:16:29People talk to each other all the time.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32The ones I love are upstairs on the bus when you hear
0:16:32 > 0:16:34half-conversations.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37People talking to somebody else on the phone, I love those ones.
0:16:37 > 0:16:38Because I fill in the gaps.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41Yes, I can't think of...
0:16:41 > 0:16:44I've heard things that struck me as being funny and bizarre.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48I might come home and tell the family but I can't think once
0:16:48 > 0:16:50of hearing somebody say something that I jotted down
0:16:50 > 0:16:51and say, I'll use that.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54Because it would end up being a punch line in a way that
0:16:55 > 0:16:56a situation comedy might.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59That you're dragging the audience towards that line.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02So if it does not serve a purpose in the story,
0:17:02 > 0:17:04I would not bother saving it.
0:17:04 > 0:17:05They are always talking in The Snapper.
0:17:05 > 0:17:06They are also always laughing.
0:17:06 > 0:17:09It struck me as a very happy book.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13Yes, I think it was Colm Toibin who said it was the first and only
0:17:13 > 0:17:15example of a happy family in Irish literature!
0:17:15 > 0:17:18That was deliberate.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21This is a family that works, with their flaws.
0:17:21 > 0:17:24I read it recently because I have done a stage adaptation that is
0:17:25 > 0:17:26going on in Dublin next year.
0:17:26 > 0:17:32I was quite shocked in many ways.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35There is a level of violence in it I did not know was there.
0:17:35 > 0:17:37It was not in my memory.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40But things that were acceptable 30 years ago when I started the book
0:17:40 > 0:17:42would be utterly unacceptable now.
0:17:42 > 0:17:44Really quite a shock.
0:17:44 > 0:17:50Some of the attitudes have shifted and changed.
0:17:50 > 0:17:53There are things in it that are rooted to its time.
0:17:53 > 0:17:54But it is a happy family.
0:17:54 > 0:17:57And yet some of your novels seem to have this bleak streak.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00I am thinking about Paddy Clarke, this ten-year-old boy,
0:18:00 > 0:18:03whose verve for life seems to crumble as his parents'
0:18:03 > 0:18:09marriage disintegrates.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13I wondered where that pessimism comes from.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17I don't know.
0:18:17 > 0:18:20I'd find if I was in the company of a 50-year-old man
0:18:20 > 0:18:22who is utterly optimistic, I would find it
0:18:22 > 0:18:23completely unbearable.
0:18:23 > 0:18:24Give me pessimism everyday!
0:18:24 > 0:18:26Give me pessimism every day!
0:18:26 > 0:18:33It's part of the package, isn't it?
0:18:33 > 0:18:34We all know we die.
0:18:34 > 0:18:35We are mortal.
0:18:35 > 0:18:40Therefore there has to be pessimism.
0:18:40 > 0:18:42Unless you are looking forward with giddy delight
0:18:42 > 0:18:43to what might be coming.
0:18:43 > 0:18:53To me this is it.
0:18:54 > 0:18:58It was like the official picture is every house had mammy, daddy,
0:18:58 > 0:19:02in the Irish situation in the '60s, 6.2 children, or 4.2 children.
0:19:02 > 0:19:04There were four children in my house.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07There would have been five except one of the children died.
0:19:07 > 0:19:09That was not a big family by any means.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12I remember there were houses where there was a father by himself,
0:19:12 > 0:19:13a lot of women by themselves.
0:19:13 > 0:19:15The father was away working in South America.
0:19:15 > 0:19:22That was the official story.
0:19:22 > 0:19:23So the notion of that family's structure,
0:19:23 > 0:19:29while it was the standard one, was not universal.
0:19:29 > 0:19:37I was just working with that when I started Paddy Clarke.
0:19:37 > 0:19:39The book ends with the break-up of the parents' marriage.
0:19:39 > 0:19:41We don't know what happens after that.
0:19:41 > 0:19:42How is he?
0:19:42 > 0:19:43I have not a clue.
0:19:43 > 0:19:44Because he is a fictional character.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46Would you ever write about him in adulthood?
0:19:46 > 0:19:47No.
0:19:47 > 0:19:49I would not have the remotest interest.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53It is one of the few stand-alone books I've written.
0:19:53 > 0:19:58I think it is a much better book left alone.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02You touched on your own family and you did capture your parents'
0:20:02 > 0:20:03memories in a memoir Rory And Ita.
0:20:03 > 0:20:10Why did you want to do that?
0:20:10 > 0:20:13Well, my children were very young and I thought if the worst
0:20:13 > 0:20:22happened and my parents died while they were very young
0:20:22 > 0:20:23they would be left not knowing much about their grandparents.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25My mother for a example was born in 1925.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28Her mother died in 1928, when my mother was three.
0:20:28 > 0:20:33She knew virtually nothing about her.
0:20:33 > 0:20:35She didn't know her surname.
0:20:35 > 0:20:36I don't think there was a photograph.
0:20:36 > 0:20:38Did not know where she came from.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42Did not know where her family were.
0:20:42 > 0:20:44I witnessed my mother discovering that side of her family
0:20:44 > 0:20:48when she was in her 50s.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52She found out she had a whole family living in Long Island in New York.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54Did you ever wonder whether the general public
0:20:54 > 0:20:56would actually be interested in reading about them?
0:20:56 > 0:20:58I don't know what the general public is.
0:20:58 > 0:21:01I never thought it was going to be Angela's Ashes.
0:21:01 > 0:21:05It wasn't going to be a global phenomenon by any means.
0:21:05 > 0:21:10But I thought it would have a validity.
0:21:10 > 0:21:12They were great storytellers and very descriptive.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15My mother's memory is very precise.
0:21:15 > 0:21:17My father's is more general and he embellishes.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21So he had vivid memories of his birth.
0:21:21 > 0:21:25Whereas my mother would limit herself to what actually happened.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29They worked well as a team.
0:21:29 > 0:21:34I was enjoying it and I sent early chapters to my
0:21:34 > 0:21:40publisher and he loved them, so that was enough for me.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43As I said at the beginning, you have been writing for 30 years.
0:21:43 > 0:21:44Does it get easier?
0:21:44 > 0:21:45No.
0:21:45 > 0:21:46That is good.
0:21:46 > 0:21:52No, it is never habitual.
0:21:52 > 0:21:54It is always work, work I love.
0:21:54 > 0:21:5711 novels in and working on the 12th, and that is hard,
0:21:57 > 0:21:58coming up with something again fresh.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02I have always accepted the fact I am getting older,
0:22:02 > 0:22:04therefore the camera angle is different and there is material
0:22:04 > 0:22:07to write about I would never have anticipated before.
0:22:07 > 0:22:09We shall look forward to your 12th novel.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12Roddy Doyle, it has been so good to talk to you.
0:22:12 > 0:22:22Thanks very much.