It was an Irish series, so there had to be a priest, a recurring character, but I didn’t want your lovable Barry Fitzgerald gombeen of The Quiet Man. I wanted a flawed human version to whom priesthood was simply a job, and one he didn’t especially care for.
When I was a child, the country was so poor, for many the only hope of education was by joining the priesthood. Callow youths, like cannon fodder, they went, as it was their mothers’ wish.
What an awful burden to lay on any child. No wonder they went nuts.
Fr. Malachy would always be Jack’s nemesis and, like the best of enemies, they even joined uneasy forces for Priest.
I knew from the off that this series was going to get me into all sorts of shite in Ireland and so went completely for broke.
Jack’s mother.
Like Italians and the other Europeans, we love our mothers… Never no mind she might be the biggest bitch who ever walked the planet, Irish boys love their mammy.
Fook that.
Jack loathed his mother and never tried to hide it. She was everything that is worst about our country.
Pious
Sanctimonious
A hypocrite
And a mouth on her
And worst of all… long-suffering, though she instigated most of the suffering.
Jack was having none of it, took her on from the get-go, and it seemed natural her staunchest ally would be Fr. Malachy… a match made only in the malice of Ireland.
Naturally, readers presumed Jack’s mother was based on my own, as if even I have that kind of cojones.
My mother was once asked what she thought of the series, said,
“I never read him.”
Nor did she.
Ever.
Bitter?
Not really.
I grew up in a house where books and reading were regarded as not only a waste of time but a waste of money.
God forbid you ever waste money.
My mother, Lord rest her, said,
“Ken lives in a separate room from the rest of us.”
She was right.
By one of those odd coincidences, when Jack’s mother had a stroke, so did mine, so all that Jack experienced then is based on what I was going through.
It’s been eerie with the series like that.
The Killing of the Tinkers, I had a young psycho beheading swans. The swans are to Galway what the apes are to Gibraltar, though a little more attractive to look at.
My publisher was horrified, said,
“You can’t do that!”
Notice how often that crops up in my career.
You can’t.
You daren’t.
You shouldn’t.
I refused to back down, and just before the book was published, some lunatic began disemboweling the swans.
I sent my publisher the article, and he said,
“Okay… long as it’s not you doing it.”
I confuse people, not deliberately, but they read the books, thank god! (How Irish is that?) with the darkness, ferocity, brutality, and then they meet me and I’m mellow, easy to be with, and they’re a tad bewildered.
A tad
is my nod to my UK readers, the two of them.
I reserve my murderous intent for my work.
Which brings me along to the violence I’ve been crucified for.
I never dwell on it, but it’s there, explicit, and no doubt about what happens. It’s ugly, fast, and very intense.
As all violence is.
Last November, I was at a book launch. A guy walked up and broke my jaw with a hurly.
Now, that is one very bad book review.
Will Jack do similar?