February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
What is your latest book about?
“The Garden of Martyrs,” my last published book, was about the murder in 1805 in Massachusetts of a Yankee farmboy. Two Irish immigrants, Dominic Daley and James Halligan, were charged with the crime, tried in a sham court, and sentenced to death. The book tries to bring out the strong anti-Irish, anti-Catholic sentiments in early New England. The trial was such a mockery of justice that in 1984 the then governor and future Democratic Presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis, issued a pardon to them.
I am currently working on a new novel set in American in 1857, about a white slave catcher from the South who hunts a female runaway and falls in love with her as he brings her back to slavery.
What is your writing routine? Are there ideal conditions?
Get up early and write while it’s raining out.
What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Write and read, write and read. Occasionally taking time out for a Jameson’s.
Name three books that are memorable in terms of your reading pleasure.
“Felicia’s Journey,” “Cold Mountain,” “The Things They Carried.”
Is there a book you wish you had written?
“The Sound and the Fury.”
Name a book that you were pleasantly surprised by.
“The Lovely Bones.”
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If you could meet one author, living or dead, who would it be?
Shakespeare.
What book changed your life?
“Cold Mountain.”
What is your favorite spot in Ireland?
Dingle Peninsula.
You’re Irish if . . .
“[you] love the poetry of the heart.”