Connacht Tribune
Telling stories to make sense of life
Lifestyle – For many years, Mary Costello tried to ignore her need to tell stories. It was a burden that she wanted to disappear. But it wouldn’t and in her mid-40s she emerged as a major new voice in Irish fiction. As her new novel is published, the award-winning author from Menlough explains to JUDY MURPHY how she learned to embrace her talent and the joy it has brought her.
“When I’m not writing, I’m not right,” says author Mary Costello. “When I’m writing, I’m not either, but I’m more right,” she adds with a laugh.
Writing is what the Menlough woman does, having quit her teaching job in her 40s to finally deal with a ‘gnaw’ that she had tried to ignore for years.
It was a wise decision for Mary, whose second novel, The River Capture, has just been published.
Beautifully written, incisive, compassionate and humorous, The River Capture covers a series of defining events in the life of 34-year-old Luke O’Brien from Waterford. An English teacher on a career break, Luke lives alone in his childhood home on the family farm, reading, thinking and caring for his elderly aunt, Ellen. The arrival of a young woman, Ruth, into his mostly-solitary world throws everything into flux and the events that follow drive Luke to near madness.
“Porous and deeply permeable to the landscape,” is how his creator describes him.
The river that runs near the house is Luke’s constant companion, as are Leopold Bloom and James Joyce. Mary’s novel is a tribute to Ulysses although you don’t need to have read it to become immersed in The River Capture.
Circumstances force Luke to “deal with a dark night of the soul”, where he goes mad with distress and “everything he has ever read and observed comes out in a flood of thoughts”, his creator explains.
There is a satisfying resolution but not a conventional happy ending. Mary doesn’t do them.
“Life is messy and there are no neat endings,” she says.
Softly spoken and deeply attentive, she is utterly single-minded when it comes to her work.
“I have to be loyal to my character and let Luke unfold as he presents to me. I’m not going to compromise. Otherwise your writing loses integrity.”
In addition, she observes, “you have to respect the reader and the reader’s intelligence”.
That’s exactly what Mary has done with this novel and its predecessor, 2014’s Academy Street. That followed the publication of her short-story collection, The China Factory, in 2012. The China Factory, published when she was in her mid-40s, was nominated for the Guardian First Book award, while the Irish Times reviewer felt it showed Mary was “the real deal, capable of turning clay into porcelain”.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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