New chapter for author Danielle

One of Ireland’s best short-story writers, the award-winning Danielle McLaughlin, embarks on the next chapter of her career by launching her debut novel, The Art of Falling, online through the West Cork Literary Festival this Thursday evening.

Given the quality of Danielle’s work to date, which saw her win the Windham-Campbell Prize (€146,000) for her collection Dinosaurs on Other Planets and the Sunday Times Audible Short Story award for A Partial List of the Saved, the release of her first novel is keenly anticipated. The early indications from critics are that it doesn’t disappoint.

The central character of The Art of Falling is Nessa McCormack, whose marriage is on the mend following her husband’s affair. At work, she has taken charge of a retrospective art exhibition for an enigmatic sculptor, the late Robert Locke. Nessa appears to have attained an equilibrium of sorts in her life.

Yet, when an old friend threatens to expose a betrayal Nessa had hoped she’d long put behind her, and a peculiar woman claims to be the true creator of Locke’s most famous piece, Nessa must make tough decisions, personally and professionally.

If Danielle’s previous short stories are anything to go by – including her edgy Night of the Silver Fox – the former lawyer will take her characters into places emotionally and mentally where others would never dare to tread.

The “first spark” for The Art of Falling came to her at a workshop given by Ballinasloe-based author Nuala O’Connor in 2012. “It was from a writing prompt that we got that day,” explains Danielle over a Zoom call last week.

“I tried to write it as a short story for the best part of two years, but it just wasn’t right. There was always something missing from it. And over time, it became a novel and other things fed into it. The first bit of it, though, I can trace back to 2012. So, a long time (in the writing of it).”

With so much happening in the novel – between marital issues, betrayal, the exhibition and a claim of fraudulence – Danielle admits that, while all these strands grew around each other, it took a while for the layers to fully develop.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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