Gerard Brennan answers 13 questions in a Booker's Dozen.
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TPQ: What are you currently reading?
GB: I just started Espedair Street by Iain Banks today. It’s been sitting in my bookcase for over a decade, but I kept forgetting to give it a go. I’m only a few pages in, but it seems like my kind of book.
TPQ: Best and worst books you have ever read?
GB: Ask me this in person and I’ll stare at the sky, or the ceiling, for a good few minutes and make the conversation really awkward. Currently, the best is probably The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (though I’m tempted to delete that and say The Glass Key by Hammett – I can’t even decide which of his books is his best. Apart from The Thin Man. It’s good, but definitely a country mile from being his best work.) The worst? I think this answer’s long enough already.
TPQ: Book most cherished as a child?
GB: In primary school it was The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. When I was in first or second year (year 8 or 9 in today’s money) it was IT by Stephen King.
GB: In primary school it was The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. When I was in first or second year (year 8 or 9 in today’s money) it was IT by Stephen King.
TPQ: Favourite Childhood author?
GB: Roald Dahl. 100%. Even though I said Tolkien above, as a writer I could keep going back to, Dahl was king. I’ve heard he was a nasty piece of work (usually around Roald Dahl day – haters gonna hate), but that doesn’t change my childhood perception of the wee man who wrote in his garden shed using a roll of carpet and a wooden board as a desk.
TPQ: First book to really own you?
GB I’ve never thought about a book owning me before … Maybe IT by Stephen King again? My first reading of it was at too young an age to understand everything going on. I’ve reread it four or five times throughout my teens and twenties. So, it’s possibly my most re-read book, therefore it’s kind of owned me. But I rely on the films now for that nostalgia kick because it takes way too long to read the big brick of a thing.
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A Berlin Book Tower in memory of the Nazi book burning. |
TPQ: Favourite male and female author?
GB: Hammett and Highsmith.
TPQ: A Preference for fact or fiction?
GB: I prefer fiction, but I’m happy to dabble in both.
TPQ: Biography, autobiography or memoir that most impressed you?
GB: Most recently it was Acid for the Children by Flea (bass player for Red Hot Chilli Peppers), but the one I think about most when I go over the few I’ve dipped into over the years is T’is by Frank McCourt. Funny enough, I listened to both on audiobook, mostly when driving, so I’m not sure if they count as books or co-pilots.
TPQ: Any author or book you point blank refuse to read?
GB: No, I’ll give anything a try. I read Watermelon by Marian Keyes around the time they did a TV movie version of it (or maybe it was a miniseries?) and I didn’t even hide the bright pink cover from anybody. This was after bringing Irvine Welsh’s Porno to work and getting roasted by anybody in the office who happened to notice the title or the blow-up sex doll on the cover. I didn’t have many friends in the office that year, if I remember right.
GB: No, I’ll give anything a try. I read Watermelon by Marian Keyes around the time they did a TV movie version of it (or maybe it was a miniseries?) and I didn’t even hide the bright pink cover from anybody. This was after bringing Irvine Welsh’s Porno to work and getting roasted by anybody in the office who happened to notice the title or the blow-up sex doll on the cover. I didn’t have many friends in the office that year, if I remember right.
TPQ: A book to share with somebody so that they would more fully understand you?
GB: As mawkish, self-absorbed, and opportunistic as it might sound, I’d say check out Disorder by Gerard Brennan. Honestly, though, there are so many different versions of me inhabiting that book that I’m convinced you would probably worry about me, but also get to know me well enough to make it through a long car journey together. Or we could just listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks, like normal people do.
GB: If you mean wrapped up in nice paper for an occasion, I bought my wife The Sisters of Auschwitz by Roxane Van Iperen for her birthday this year. She’s read pretty much every ‘…of Auschwitz’ book that’s come out in the last few years, but I think she said this one was really good. Or the cover looked nice. She definitely said something positive about it. Maybe, “Nice try, Gerard.”
If you mean, a book I brought to a friend’s house because I thought they’d like it, I gave my copy of Fifty Fifty by Steve Cavanagh (a fellow Norn Irish scribbler) to Simon Maltman (a ‘nor Norn Irish scribbler) when I stopped by his native Conlig. And he enjoyed that one as much as I expected him to.
TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?
GB: Anything by Stuart Neville.
TPQ: A "must read" you intend getting to before you die?
GB: I’m working really hard to not die any time soon. Exercising, dieting, looking after my mental health – all that not-very-rock-and-roll stuff. If I die before my time (when I turn 120, with luck and advancing technology), I’ll be thinking about my wife and kids as the curtain closes, not books.
GB: I’m working really hard to not die any time soon. Exercising, dieting, looking after my mental health – all that not-very-rock-and-roll stuff. If I die before my time (when I turn 120, with luck and advancing technology), I’ll be thinking about my wife and kids as the curtain closes, not books.
⏩ Gerard Brennan's most recent novel is titled Disorder, published by No Alibis Press.
