February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Yet as a published writer, recognition came instantaneously. His memoir of his North Wall childhood, “44: Dublin Made Me,” was a commercial and critical hit after its publication in 1999.
“It transformed my life in many ways,” he said. “I had serious money for the first time ever.
“I’d always gotten by; I was always scraping a living. I never knew what I was earning from one week to the next, for over 20 years.”
It helped that his wife, Sheila, was a teacher and the couple, who’ll celebrate their 33rd anniversary next month, managed to raise three daughters, all now themselves teachers in Dublin, and a son, who works in IT in San Francisco.
Sheridan’s second work, “47 Roses,” a more serious book, he said, about his parents’ marriage and related issues, was also a success.
His latest, “Every Inch of Her,” is his first novel, though he regards it as the final part of a trilogy.
“It has very much the same atmosphere, the same landscape, the same basic characters as in the earlier books,” said Sheridan, who’s 52.
“It all happened by accident,” he said of his career writing books.
Some years ago, he explained, he was about to direct a filmic life of Brendan Behan, with Sean Penn in the lead.
“But Sean had to pull out for family reasons, which left me with nothing to do on Monday morning,” recalled the author, who later wrote and directed a movie version of “Borstal Boy.”
“I said, ‘Hey, I’ve had the opening of a book in my head for 10, 15 years, maybe I should try to get that down on paper.’ So I started and just didn’t stop. I worked for a year on it, didn’t take on any other jobs while I was doing it and got it finished.”
When working on a project, Sheridan writes from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., taking a two-hour break in the middle of the day. “When I really get into my stride, I work two hours on Saturday and Sunday, in the morning,” he added.
“Most writers will say they’re trying to heal something in their lives — the wound of childhood, some trauma in the past. You’re trying to explain the world to yourself. And that would certainly be true; there was stuff back there in my childhood that I wanted to address.”
That conventional wisdom is usually applied to writers of fiction, but the boundaries are blurred for Sheridan. “I definitely wrote the memoirs as if they were novels,” he said.
However, he found one difference between memoir and fiction.
“My father was born on a certain date and died on a certain date, but in a novel it’s much more fluid, much more organic,” he said.
“The characters speak to you after a while. Somehow they seem to exercise a hold on you, in a way that they don’t in a memoir.
“They’re restraining you, pulling you back and at other times they’re saying ‘No, go down there.’ “
Sheridan said that the central character of “Every Inch of Her” had been in his head for 20 years.
The larger-than-life Philomena Nolan, or simply Philo, who has fled her five children and abusive husband, finds refuge with the nuns of the Good Shepherd Convent in the North Wall. The overweight, tattooed Philo loves to smoke, drink and eat junk food, but her warmth and generosity are quickly evident to the sisters, who put her to work at a seniors’ center.
“It was an enjoyable book to write,” the author said. “And I think it’s maybe an easy book to read.”
Sheridan, whose work has challenged societal and sexual taboos, wanted to write about nuns in a positive light.
“The church is the architect of its own downfall,” he said. “But there are still great people working at the coalface of all sorts of problems, like homelessness and domestic abuse.”
The writer will develop a screenplay for “Every Inch of Her” in the coming months, and would like to direct it himself.
At the moment, he’s enjoying his 13-city book tour of the United States, though he’s had to get used to a different title. It’s published as “Big Fat Love” across the Atlantic.
“I don’t think the Americans wanted ‘fat’ in the title,” he said.
Generally, he’s been very pleased with the reception the book has gotten outside of Ireland. “I found the response to the novel to be absolutely fantastic in America. It’s already in its third reprint,” he said.
“People are engaged by it, see the humor in it and the blackness,” Sheridan said. “Nothing beats that if you’re an author — that people respond to the material.”
“Every Inch of Her” is published by Penguin Books (paperback, $14).