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So Zane, what is London Irish all about?
It's essentially a black comedy about a disillusioned, slightly misanthropic Irish guy who has had a skinful of London.
To summarise the plot: Bic runs a crepe stall on Greenwich market, it's summer 1999, and everyone is gearing up to celebrate a new millennium. It's a time for resolution and Bic vows to return to Northern Ireland and set up an ostrich farm. But before he can buy his incubator, some fencing and a plot of Irish land, he falls for Roisin and his world is turned upside down. Circumstances conspire against him and he finds himself on the run, with 14 murders to his name.
It's a bit of a romp - a thriller that doesn't take itself too seriously. Along the way I get a chance to explore the lives of some of the many ex-pat Irish living in London. It was a strange time back in '99, the impending millennium forced a lot of us to look at ourselves and consider our futures. Bic is at such a crossroads ... he's tired of his job, his city, and his dead-end relationships with married women. But he doesn't just dig himself out of his rut, he is propelled out of it by darker forces. The nature of time looms large in the book. For Bic there is a real sense that time is running out.
How much of it is based upon your own experiences?
Well, they always say write about what you know. Bic's disenchantment with London echoes my feelings about the city after living and working there for seven years. London was good to me, but if you haven’t grown up there you are acutely aware that there is another world beyond the M25. When Bic is forced to flee London, he winds up in Edinburgh. After I finished the book and Black Swan had committed to it, I was offered a writer's job in Edinburgh. So the story of a disillusioned Ulsterman leaving London for Edinburgh isn't just based on my experience, it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I do make a mean crepe!
The novel won the WHSmith ‘People’s Choice’ award for New Talent. What does this mean to you?
It’s a bit of cliché to say that because the book was voted for by the reading public that it means so much more than if a select literary panel had given it an award, but I guess it’s true. There’s no greater thrill for a writer than knowing that people are actually reading your book, and liking it. Well, perhaps kissing Jerry Hall at the awards ceremony was a comparable thrill!
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