Kathleen MacMahon's debut novel, This is How It Ends, is totally absorbing. There is a lot going on, but it's told in such a light and easy way that readers will find themselves stepping right inside the lives of this wonderful Irish family.
At its heart it is a love story, but the family that surrounds the lovers are what makes this book much more than a romance.
There's also Barack Obama's election, kids and dogs, grumpy, gruff men and soft, lovely women.
Although I thought I knew what the end would be, I hoped all the way through I was wrong.
Beautifully written with engaging characters, this is a fantastic read.
An award-winning television journalist in Ireland, Kathleen is married with twin daughters.
I asked her some questions about writing her first novel.
WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE IT WAS TIME TO WRITE A BOOK?I've been thinking about it since I was 10. Honestly. I've been writing in notebooks and squirrelling away ideas for years, fighting off the desire to write; growling to myself every time I read about somebody getting a publishing deal or getting a good review for their debut novel; having conversations in my head every time I read a book about whether I could do it better. Until there came a moment, about eight years ago, when I had what I knew was a really solid idea for a novel and I thought, now, the moment of truth.
WHAT CAME FIRST, THE CHARACTERS OR THE PLOT?I think the character came first and the setting for the book. I had this image of a very sad woman, who - through no fault of her own - had ended up in a bit of a rut in her life, and she was walking her dog on the beach, and swimming in the sea and very bravely trying to shake off her melancholy. And I wanted something really good to happen to her. I wanted someone to walk into her life who would bring her joy and make her see herself, and her life, in a completely new light. So the plot grew out of the character, and my desire for her to find happiness.
YOU ARE THE MOTHER OF TWINS AND HAVE A HIGH PRESSURE JOB. WHEN DID YOU FIND THE TIME TO WRITE?At first, with some difficulty. I'm a TV reporter and I work shifts, which involves long hours and weekend work, but the compensation is you find yourself with time off during the week, when everyone else is at the office and the kids are at school. That's prime writing time for me when the house is quiet. But I think if you're a working mother you have to seize the time wherever you find it. My grandmother was a writer and I remember her working on a tray in bed. I've managed to write while there's a sick child on the couch passing me notes that say, "Can I have some toast?"
WHAT RESEARCH DID YOU DO?The setting for the book was the place where I live, near Sandymount Strand in Dublin, so the research for that was easy I walk there every morning with the dog. I'm a swimmer, too, and there's a lot of swimming in the book, so that wasn't difficult. And at the time I was writing the book, I was working as a foreign desk reporter, producing TV reports on the global economic crisis and the election in the US (among other things), and those events very much form the backdrop for the book. The character of Bruno was the one I had to research the most - he's American and I'm Irish, so I had to find out about the place where he was from in New Jersey, and I had to read up a lot on Lehman Brothers, where he worked, and I had to listen to a lot of Bruce Springsteen. The Bruce Springsteen bit didn't feel like work.
HOW LONG DID IT TAKE?All in all, the book took about a year and a half to write.
WHAT IS THE FIRST BOOK YOU CAN REMEMBER READING?That's such a hard question. I've been a voracious reader for as long as I can remember but I can't for the life of me remember what would have been the first book I read. I remember being read to. When I was very small my Grandmother used to read me a story about a swan called Daughter Dell. She lost her mate and she spent the rest of her life going up down and down the river alone. Swans mate for life, Grandmother told me, and I've never forgotten that. It's so sad. I still have a picture of that solitary swan in my head.
FAVOURITE AUTHOR? For beauty, William Trevor. For perfect descriptions of everyday life, Ann Tyler.
For unexpected poetry, E. Annie Proulx. For humour and colour, John Irving. For pure literary horse power, Philip Roth. I could go on and on.
WHAT'S NEXT FOR YOU?The next book. And the next one after that.
They're lining up in my head.