Joseph O’Connor on being shortlisted for Shadowplay

14th May, 2020

Joseph O’Connor, shortlisted for the prize with Shadowplay, reads an extract from his book especially for the Prize.

And in this fascinating Q&A, he tells us the background to his book and what he feels about historical fiction.

I feel honoured and truly delighted to be shortlisted for this prize, because I’m always interested in the book that wins it and I’ve never been disappointed.  Some writers of novels set in the past get a bit uneasy when their books are called ‘historical novels’ but it doesn’t bother me.  I feel nearly all stories are set in the past, even when they appear to be set in the future.  Star Wars, to me, is about our own world, not a fictional one. So, the historical novel can illuminate our own lives now, and if it doesn’t, it probably won’t work.

 

Q: How did the people and times you write about in this novel first lodge in your imagination?

Well, my novel is about Bram Stoker, Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, and I’d say Stoker has been part of my life since I was a young child.  Although he became a Londoner and adored that city, he was a Dubliner by birth, as am I, and I heard many stories about him as I grew up. He’s just always been about, knocking on the windows of my imagination.  The more I found about him, the more enthralled I became. But there are so many things we don’t know about him, and so his life has fascinating silences, and those are always intriguing to the novelist.  In that way, the book became what I see as a love story.

 

Q: What place does research have in your writing?  When does the fiction take over from the facts?

You must always do your research thoroughly, because readers will feel it or know it when you don’t, and nothing scuppers a book quicker than a howler or an anachronism. At the same time, there must come a moment when you put the research notes away and set out to write a novel, not a textbook. We go to fiction for an experience of empathy, or beauty, or pleasure, not primarily to know the facts.  To me, a novel should first be an involving and beautiful read and should only include research through a sort of osmosis.

 

Q: Do you think historical fiction can help in times of crisis like these?  

Yes, I think stories set in the past can illuminate what we’re going through now, providing context, hope, an occasion for contemplation or escape. Everything we’re enduring, or something like it, has been endured before.  The storyteller’s job is to conjure reality in such a way that it touches us. We write the sheet music. The reader sings the song.