Paula McGrath Meet the Author


Paula McGrath

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Now it's time for this week's Meet the Author.

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The Irish writer Paula McGrath's novel, A History of Running Away,

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is about three women separated by time and place,

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who are all trying to escape the circumstances of their lives.

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They're all connected, although we don't know how

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at the start of the book, and their stories are about

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a society that seems to thwart them at every turn,

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but then perhaps begins to offer something different,

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and something hopeful.

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Welcome.

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What fascinated you about these three women who are

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apart but connected?

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I began with Jasmine, who's our 1980s character

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who decides that she wants to box.

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Which wasn't allowed at that time for women.

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That's right, yes, which I didn't realise initially.

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I had an image of a character, which is unusual for me

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because usually, I forget to write what they look like at all.

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But this character was extremely vivid to me.

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She had...

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She was the 1980s rural only goth in the village,

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so I knew my setting would be '80s, and I knew it was rural

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Ireland to begin with.

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She runs away from home because she wants to join

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Legs Co initially, but the BBC gave her short shrift

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and she ends up back in Dublin and discovers boxing.

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At the time that I was starting to think about this

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novel in the beginning,

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I was fascinated by Katie Taylor, the Irish boxer.

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She was fighting for Olympic gold, and there was something

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about the fact that boxing had been illegal and now she was

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winning a gold medal.

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Did you have any feelings about women's boxing?

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Not really, it wasn't something I wanted to do.

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I had one attempt at kickboxing and fell out of the gym.

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It was very strenuous, so I had no objection, but no

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real interest myself.

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So let's talk about the other two principal characters,

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since we have started off with Jasmine.

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Jasmine led me back to her mother's story, and through her to Ali,

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who is a recently orphaned teenager who was running away

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from her grandparents - grandparents that she didn't know

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until recently that she has.

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She's in Maryland in the States, and it's not

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clear what the connection is between the characters

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to the reader at this point.

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The other narrator is a gynaecologist in present-day

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Dublin, and she's increasingly frustrated with her

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working conditions.

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So they are all imprisoned in different ways?

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Yes, you could say that.

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They feel the need to run.

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In any case, they all run, and in Jasmine's case

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she runs away twice.

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I suppose we have our fight or flight options, and they go

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for flight each time.

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The gynaecologist is on the brink, she is trying

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to decide whether to stay.

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They have all got great difficulties either because of intimate

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relationships, work, family or by the social pressures

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around them, and they seem to be trying to escape.

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But there's a feeling in the book that things in that respect

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may be getting better.

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Is that how you feel?

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I did feel that from looking at the boxing story, certainly,

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things were getting better.

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Obviously, Katie Taylor is a shining example

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of why women should be allowed to decide whether or not

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they want to box.

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It's not for everybody, but there were and still are other

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things that women can't do, that they're not allowed

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to decide for themselves.

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And I don't feel that that's getting better.

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It needs to change, but there was an anger underlying

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the writing of the book.

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It was inescapable for me, and I think for many,

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to think that you are living at home in Ireland in a society which has

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changed radically, really, in the last, even the last decade.

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The country has gone through an economic crash,

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a recovery, and now seems to be booming again.

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It has a sort of irrepressible self-confidence about it.

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You've lived through a very dramatic period in the history

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of Ireland, haven't you?

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Yes, starting from the '80s, I came to Dublin to college

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in the '80s and it feels to me that we have come, in a way,

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almost a full circle,

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a second recession.

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Going back to the abortion referendum again,

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it happened in the early '80s and yet we're back again

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in 2014, 2016, 2017, and there's fresh new scandals.

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So although Ireland has come a long way,

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the hold of the Catholic Church has been broken to some extent,

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I think the effects of that

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have yet to be felt, for women at any rate.

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For anybody who talks to people about these events,

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you realise how profound the change has been, how profound

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the questioning is of the kinds of assumptions there

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were in the generation before yours.

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I mean, the society is a much more mobile, open one than it's ever been

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before in modern times.

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Yes, and I tried with the book to show, and I think this is why

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I ended up with three different narrators and brought them together,

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just to show that the underlying theme that the Irish state's

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relationship with women's bodies has been...

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difficult, I suppose,

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historically, and still is, but things have changed.

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So back in the '50s, we had mother-baby homes, then we had this

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abortion referendum, and now we have Katie Taylor winning

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gold, but we still have to go to the next stage.

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This is no coincidence that one of the main characters

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is a gynaecologist.

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No coincidence, no!

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And her mother is a boxer.

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Obviously, there's a mystery involved in the story,

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a set of mysteries, but it's not a tease for the reader.

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I mean, it's really a story that's meant to have you thinking

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about their characters and their difficulties and how

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they cope with them, isn't it?

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That's really what drives you.

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Yeah, it's the characters, each of them at their own stage,

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trying to figure out where they are in their lives and what they want

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and who they are in a way, as they also gradually come

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to discover or the reader comes to discover who they are.

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Irish writing is in such a healthy state -

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there are young novelists, young poets, young storytellers

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in Ireland which is, you know, is a small country.

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The rich literary tradition really is still alive, isn't it?

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Very much so.

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Yeah.

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Are you conscious of that?

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I am conscious of it.

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There's a lot of support out there.

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Tax breaks and vibrant literary journals.

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I think literature is something we take seriously.

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I'm not too sure why, whether it's economic or whatever -

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it's pretty cheap to sit down and write!

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I think these tax breaks don't really cost the Government very

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much, but they do kind of foster a community.

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But when you say you don't know why, I think that if you talk to some

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of the sort of world-renowned Irish writers of today, they all say,

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look, you know, if you come from the small country that produced

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Joyce and Beckett and Flann O'Brien, then you really are always conscious

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that you have got kind of an obligation

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to these great figures that

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are standing on your shoulders.

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Yeah, they are quite intimidating and for a long time I think...

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I studied literature in college and that's probably why I found

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it so difficult to get started as a writer...

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Because you were aware of what's behind you!

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Exactly, yeah.

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Where do you think - this is your second novel,

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Generation was the first couple of years ago - where

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is your writing going to take you, do you think?

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Well, I know where it's taking me at the moment.

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I'm working on a third novel.

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What kind of theme has that got?

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The theme of trauma, if that doesn't sound too off-putting!

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Oh, it's not off-putting.

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Multiple trauma...

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You can't have a novel where nothing happens, nothing exciting.

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No, and I'm conscious of all of what might have become

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cliches of Irish writing.

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I don't want the child abuse story, I want multiple traumas that can be

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read that are palatable to the reader, so that's

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what I'm working on.

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And avoiding the Irish cliche.

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Trying hard!

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Paula McGrath, thank you very much indeed.

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Thank you.

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