Novelist Lisa set for next chapter

Lifestyle – Lisa McInerney was hailed as a powerful new voice in Irish fiction when her debut novel The Glorious Heresies was published six years ago. Bleak, humorous and filled with humanity, it explored the complexities of growing up in working-class Ireland and struck a chord with readers and critics alike. As the third novel in the cycle is published, Lisa is ready to move on to her next project but isn’t ruling out a return to this rich universe in the future as she tells STEPHEN GLENNON.

People following the adventures of young Cork City drug dealer Ryan Cusack and his fellow Leesiders in Lisa McInerney’s stylish novel cycle, are in for yet another literary feast with her third book, The Rules of Revelation.

When it comes to fine writing, the Gort author and winner of the 2016 Women’s Prize for Fiction, is both architect and interior designer in her craft.

In The Rules of Revelation, Lisa delves deeper into the characters that readers have become invested in over the last six years, most notably her protagonist Ryan Cusack, who is determined to reinvent himself as a musician and leave his murky past behind.

This is the third and, for the moment, final book in the cycle, which began with The Glorious Heresies in 2015 and continued with The Blood Miracles two years later. Interestingly, Lisa notes that her second novel, which won an Encore Award, was the one that came to her first. But to tell the story, she felt she had to go back further in the characters’ lives.

“So, that is how The Glorious Heresies came together,” she says. “Then, when I brought it to the publisher, I said ‘I know what the sequel is to this and I am pretty sure there is going to be a third as well. I am going to have it around sex, drugs and roll ’n’ roll’. You see, you need a business plan,” she laughs.

While there are three books, Lisa prefers if they are referred to as a set or cycle rather than a trilogy, believing each book can be read independently of the others.

“I often think that you can read The Rules of Revelation and then go back to find the answers to a lot of the mysteries in it in The Glorious Heresies. So, I was hoping they would work out of order.”

Certainly, the characters and stories are strong enough to do this. She says all good books – whatever the genre – should start with character.

“Off the top of my head, the only book I can think where plot mattered more (than character) was The Da Vinci Code, where it didn’t matter who the characters were. The plot was almost asking you to solve the mystery.

“So, for me, it always starts with characters; it starts with people. That might be having the shape of a person, maybe the physical shape of them moving through the world or it could be a line of dialogue or it could be some sort of quirk. Some little nugget that you can build a person around.”

No doubt, Lisa’s books are rich with intriguing individuals of varying morals, with pensioner Maureen being one who stands out.  The mother of mobster Jimmy Phelan, she has a unique view of the world. She’s also not one to stand on ceremony, grabbing Ryan by the earlobe and dragging him in front of her to explain himself in one scene. This is Maureen in full flight.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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