Bond Wildly and Love Deeply: A Conversation with Caroline O’Donoghue

12 Jul

‘‘I wanted to summon the joy of that co-dependent, lovely, drunk, dreamy time.’

For people who haven’t read the book yet, could you give a general overview of what The Rachel Incident is about, and how it came about from your perspective as a writer?

Sure, this is my first interview I’ve given about the book, so I’m interested to see whether even I know what the book is about! The Rachel Incident tells the story of Rachel who’s living in Cork in 2009 during the global financial crash, which has started really trickling down and affecting her life. Her formerly very middle-class parents are really struggling financially but also, the city she grew up in is kind of buckling in on itself. And then she suddenly meets James, who is closeted and working in the bookshop that she works in, and he just wakes her up. She immediately moves out of her parents’ house and moves in with him in a shitty little cottage. And what I love about it is that it’s about a renaissance of the soul. We’re very used to this idea of people going to the big city to find themselves, but you can do that a mile and a half away from your childhood home if you meet the right person! There’s this social scene of two, and then they just disappear into a world of private jokes. Among their private jokes is the idea that Rachel is going to seduce her impressive professor Dr Byrne, so they organise a book launch for him on his unreadable book.

Having worked in a bookshop, I could imagine that scene so well – the awkwardness of it all was so well done.

It was my favourite part to write; it was so fun. And it felt like writing a real farce, like a bedroom comedy kind of thing, which is pretty fun to do. Anyway, instead of seducing Rachel, he seduces James, which sounds like a big betrayal that will move the novel on, but it actually ends up not really being a betrayal, but more of a gathering of mess.

In terms of how it came about, it was during the pandemic; it was written when the pandemic wasn’t fun anymore. I had a book due for May, but then when it came to February, I had to finally face up to what I’d been feeling for over a year, which was that the book just wasn’t good. It just wasn’t, it wasn’t a goer. It was this kind of Black Mirror-esque story about a feminist workplace, and I had a lot to say because I worked in big feminism for a few years and I had a lot of observations on that movement, but then the further we got into the pandemic, the more I was a bit like, ‘Who cares?’

You got a little bit of perspective from the pandemic?

Totally. And also, the novel, I think there are good bits of it, but I will never look at it again. Even though it was the kind of a novel I thought that maybe I should be writing because I enjoy novels like it, it was that kind of novel that is just ‘girls having mean thoughts’, and everyone’s a little bit nasty. There’s definitely a genre of book like that, but I just realised that it was making me depressed writing it. So, I had 12 weeks to write something else, and my major thing was that it had to be something where I didn’t have any excuses to open a Google Chrome tab because, with the other book, I had lost so much belief in myself that I had fallen into a rabbit hole – I was going crazy interviewing people that had no relevancy. Like, I went to a five-hour dinner with a Lebanese priest just because one of the characters is Lebanese! So, I couldn’t do that again. And I wanted to write about something that made me happy, so I ended up going back to this time in my life in 2008 when I lived with my best mate, Ryan, who was in the closet at the time, and I wanted to summon the joy of that co-dependent, lovely, drunk, dreamy time. And then the rest was just kind of a soap opera that I cobbled together. The emotions are very true, but the story is definitely fake.

We’ve talked to a few authors about how readers always want to assume that everything’s biographical, which in your case it isn’t, but there’s also a realisation that certain things can’t help but be pulled from your experience, even if it’s just an experience of a certain emotion.

I don’t know what what’s wrong with the human brain, but we’ve still not managed to grant our novelists that duality. Truth in novels is a bit like alcohol in wine – 13% is too low, 15% is about right, 16% and people lose their mind. What is odd about The Rachel Incident is that the images on both the UK and the US jacket covers look very like me…

I was going to ask you about that! It really does look like you…

It’s very strange. And when you’re talking about covers, you get a couple of vetoes at the beginning and I used all my vetoes quite quickly, and I kept pointing the publishers towards the Young Mungo cover – I really wanted that sweat; I wanted it to feel intimate and close. And when they showed me the cover, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is fabulous, it’s exactly what I wanted. Yes, yes, yes.’ And then I showed it to my boyfriend, and he was like, ‘That looks like a picture of you – is that why you like it?’

It’s a great picture! People should read The Rachel Incident because it’s a great book, but I think the fact that people will think it’s you on the cover might make them want to read it even more.

I think if they think that they’re being invited to uncover secrets, that can only be good for business!

Great point. I wanted to ask you about writing about Ireland while living in London – does the distance give you a certain perspective of Ireland that you might not have had if you were writing from Ireland?

It’s an interesting thing because, when I first started out, I had this book out called Promising Young Women, and the main character is a Londoner, and nobody in that book is Irish. At that point, I would have been living in London for six years, so that was what I was experiencing and what I wanted to write about. I also didn’t feel like anyone would be interested in what I have to say about Ireland, which is a funny feeling. I felt like I had been gone too long to have any relevant take on what the country was up to, but I also hadn’t been in England long enough to feel truly centred, to really get the kind of references you’re sharing with friends. I think it gave a sense of listlessness to that early book.

And then in the next one, I wanted to answer that, so it was about an English person going back to their Irish roots to peel back the threads of their identity. And then the YA books are all set in Ireland because I was a teenager in Ireland, and they were the only kind of teenager I knew. And that really opened up this flow for me where I realised, and maybe it’s just to do with confidence, that what I have to say about Ireland is every bit as relevant as what James Joyce had to say about Ireland, because we’re both reading about the Ireland that we knew about. And I think, as an Irish writer, it takes you a long time to get over not being James Joyce, or any of the other amazing ones. And so, for some reason, I was very able to plant my feet in it this time.

I think that’s why a lot of people have their debuts in these big cities, because a lot of writers do move to cities to try and become themselves. And the feeling that writers really thrive on is feeling like an outsider –Who am I? Where am I? Who am I to you?

I noticed that your book has been described as an unconventional love story, and I wondered how you felt about that description. And what does that mean to you – an ‘unconventional love story’?

I mean, I can’t speak to whether it’s conventional or not because I think a lot of stories have a deep friendship in it. But definitely, when I set out to write it, I had realised that I had gone this far into my career, and I hadn’t really talked about something that was a huge defining thing in my life, which is loving men! My first novel was a very cynical look at heterosexual relationships, the second novel was more focused on a queer woman, and in the trilogy for teenagers, most of the characters are women, the main love interest is non-binary, and a lot of that relationship talks about having a trans partner. So, I was like, ‘I’ve gotten this far, five novels...’

And where are the men?!

Yeah! And I’m engaged to a man, some of my best friends are men, and I think I’m interested in that because, to give it an era, I’m a post-Me Too author; while my first novel was being published, the Me Too movement was happening, and I think there was definitely a feeling among writers of my generation that there’s something a bit gauche about just adoring a man. We don’t trust them, and for good reasons. And even writing love stories or sex stories, a lot of us are inclined to be like, ‘Oh, yeah, he was fine, but he only cared about himself, and he didn’t take my pleasure seriously, or whatever.’

I just wanted to write something about loving men, and not just straight men, but all men – gay men, straight men, fat men, small men – and I found that really lovely, actually. I found it very freeing, and particularly with the romantic lead of the book, Carey, I really loved just taking all the things I’ve loved about every man I’ve ever loved and smashing them into one person.

And I just loved writing them all – I loved Fred Byrne, I loved James. And that, to me, is the most love story thing about it. It’s the love story between two best friends, but also it’s a love story of being like, ‘Yeah, I’m ready to just be open that men are sometimes lovely.’

That definitely comes across, and I love the idea of smashing all the men that you loved into one flawed but lovely person.

Yeah, it’s really fun!

We’ve spoken to a couple of authors whose books are centred around a relationship of three, a bit of a triangle. And one of the authors commented on that dynamic and why it can be so much more exciting because you get these different perspectives on each relationship, and I was wondering whether the triangle dynamic was something you had thought about?

Well, I think this ends up being more of a quadrangle, right? I guess the centre of the triangle at the beginning is Dr Byrne, where it’s two best friends in love with the same man, and then Rachel dispenses with her love of Dr Byrne quite quickly. Actually, when I was first sketching out the plot, I thought it would hinge much more on that and Rachel’s jealousy than it ended up doing. But then when it got to it, I didn’t want to. I was just really following my bliss. The more I got to know her, I was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t think she ever thought she was really going to have sex with this man’. I think she knows she’s not the kind of girl that thing happens to. I think she’s so thrilled to be let in on a secret because there’s a point where she says, ‘Now that I was in this exchange of secrecy with James I could sit more firmly in being his best friend because up until then, I couldn’t see why he would want to be my best friend, because he was fabulous, and I was nothing.’ I think maybe it’s not an unconventional love story, but it might be an unconventional love triangle because one of the parties just loses interest in the top of the triangle.

Maybe it kind of shifts with Carey again, because you always have the two points and then Carey becomes the third point as the new love interest.

Yeah, I do think that when I introduce Carey, because he comes in about 25–30% of the way through the book, when Dr Byrne and James were already so well drawn, I knew he had to be instantly really magnetic.

So, maybe we’ll go for messy triangle, quadrangle vibe. Going back to love stories and romcoms, we’ve been thinking about reasons why so many of us turn to these kinds of stories when we’re looking for comfort or solace or distraction. They definitely seem to hold this kind of sentimental space in our hearts – is that true for you?

Definitely. And I think it’s fascinating because I’ve been in the analysing romcoms game for a few years now, and definitely in the last year, it has skyrocketed. People just want love, love, love! And like the new Curtis Sittenfeld – there’s an incredibly literary author who is like, ‘Here’s my fun, very traditional, romcom.’ You just keep waiting for her to subvert the narrative, and she just doesn’t want to.

I think it’s so fascinating and part of it might be the post-pandemic thing where a lot of writers were doing what I was doing, which was just writing to cheer themselves up. Someone pointed out to me that in the Obama era, we had dystopian stories – very dark romances with the whole Fifty Shades phenomenon – we wanted to explore a kind of a darker edge of the subconscious because it felt like it was a time that was characterised by quite a lot of hope. And now that things aren’t moving in the right direction, it’s almost like people don’t want a dystopia right now because they’re already in one. They want a dopamine rush and I do think that’s valuable.

I also think that romcoms in particular – and this isn’t a hot take or anything – are a filter for a lot of societal problems. For example, it’s the most interesting place for class conversations to emerge because, if love is the thing that trumps all, then what are the things that threaten love? And whether that’s class, or location, or having a father who doesn’t approve of things; all of these things are, regardless of whether or not you’re in love, problems you will have anyway, but they’re more manageable to deal with through the filter of a beautiful love story with wonderful characters. Pride and Prejudice is just a novel about the politics of marriage, and I think that hasn’t changed. Sex in the City and Pride and Prejudice are kind of the same that way. So, I think it’s never going to go away, it’s the most fundamental and comforting way to understand the world.

Yeah, 100%, that was so beautifully put. For you personally, what is the perfect romantic comedy? If you are looking for a comforting dopamine hit?

My indie pick is Broadcast News with Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks, which is a love triangle about three people who are working at a cable news station in the 90s. It’s both a beautiful love triangle and also this amazing film about the ethics of journalism. Again, romance being a filter for other things.

But also, I love Notting Hill, I love all the Richard Curtis’. That brownie scene in Notting Hill is so incredible – when they have to describe why they deserve the last brownie. It’s such a clever thing because we’re hearing everything we need to know about these characters through what should be very clunky exposition, but it’s actually just how friends organically talk to each other, which is just restating the facts of your life to your friends so that you can feel comfort in their acceptance of you. I love to cry as a hobby and my favourite way to cry is when things are so good, and everyone’s done a good job, and that’s the scene where I always cry.

I wanted to talk a bit more about the close friendship between Rachel and James, and particularly about the fact that a lot of people might refer to James as her ‘gay best friend’, which has always been a bit of a trope in romantic comedies and has been discussed a lot more in recent years. How do you feel about that phrase?

I really don’t like it; it annoys me. In terms of straightforward representation of gay people of any description on screen and in mainstream social media, and even books, it’s so new. You know, there was Will & Grace, but before that, it’s all very coded, like the 1930s dapper gentleman who lives with his valet and the Baroness in The Sound of Music and her best mate, Mags.

I also find this dynamic amazing of straight women and gay men who bond deeply, love wildly, depend on each other entirely, and are able to be vulnerable with one another in a way that you can’t be with straight men for obvious reasons. And yes, you can be with your female friends, but I think there’s a special magnetism and dynamic that happens when a gay man and a straight woman fall in love, which is that they start to think they’re talk show hosts…

I think I may have suggested multiple times that my friend Chris and I should just ‘start a podcast’…

Totally! Me and Ryan tried to start a podcast back in 2010… I think that these relationships are something very special and magnificent and also very unanalysed. We’ve shown it, but we haven’t thought about it that much. I find it very strange, and I think there is a kind of internalised misogyny of like, if a straight man isn’t involved, it’s not an important story. It’s marginal or weird or kind of kooky.

And yes, there are some very astute observations about gay men being seen as accessories to straight women. Even then, I feel like in Sex and the City they deal with this in a way that’s really head on, and really confronts Carrie’s shortcomings as a character.

Talking about Sex and the City, I wondered how your experience as a writer has changed over time because you must be recognised just as much for your podcasts now as you are for your novels? And I think, maybe more so with podcasts than books, listeners start to feel like they know you – is that bizarre? How do you feel about the blurring of your public and private self?

Yeah, it’s so interesting, isn’t it? I have a lot of complex thoughts on it, that I don’t know if I can totally unpick because there has been a change in my life recently, definitely post-pandemic. People listened to Sentimental in the City and then stuck around. There are so many lovely people who come up to me in the street and say, ‘Oh my God, that really saved my life in the pandemic’. And I always say the same thing, which is, ‘Yeah, it saved my life too.’ It was something that kept my life together. And what’s funny is that I was recording that podcast and writing this book at the exact same time and so lots of the things that me and Dolly said to one another have made their way into the book.

‘It’s very at play!’

It’s very at play! When I put that into the Rachel Incident, I didn’t know that it would be a thing that gay men and their best friends would shout at me in the nightclub… But there’s definitely a thing with authors who sell many copies of their books who say, ‘Just look at the words, don’t look at me’. And I admire them very much, but I’m also like, I want to do this job for the rest of my life and I also want to have a nice life and I’m not a fucking idiot; I know that in order to have those two things, to have the kind of readers that follow you through your whole life, you have to be really good, and you have to be someone they feel a invested in. It’s just like people who go to the expensive organic farmhouse shop because they like the couple that own it, even though the eggs are more expensive. I don’t think that’s a cynical or weird thing. I like talking to people, I’m not ashamed of it; I like having my photo taken. I like being alone in a room for a year and then having a big fuss made out of you and, personally, I have a fun time with it.

That’s so good to hear! And even though there’s obviously an element of the para-social that is a bit frightening, most of it is just people feeling like you’ve had an impact on them in some way. I always listen to your podcast if I’m on a boring train journey and I just want to laugh.

I love that and I’m so touched by that. And what I find so fascinating is that, because I have these two distinct audiences – the people who are interested in ‘Sentimental Garbage’ and also hopefully my novels, who are generally millennial, and then the teenagers who read my YA books – and both of those audiences reach out to me. I find it so interesting that, with the teenagers, for the most part, it’s very healthy and it’s very boundaried actually. They want to know things about the books, and they want to tell me how they felt about them, but they don’t want anything from me personally. They don’t want my friendship or anything like that. Whereas sometimes the millennial set, because we’re close in age and because we have the same vibe, they’re like, ‘We should be friends!’ And I’m like, ‘I’m not taking CVs, sorry!’ And also, those podcasts, they’re the greatest hits – actually being my friend is a fairly limited experience, it’s not that fun.

I doubt that! For my last question, I just wanted to touch on your acknowledgements, particularly the section where you speak about how the plot of your novel somewhat revolves around the lack of reproductive healthcare in Ireland, and you ask readers to consider donating to a charity that aids that cause; I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about this topic – how did you approach it and why it was central?

It’s happened several times to me in the past where my writing or releasing period of a book convenes with a political moment. Promising Young Women was literally a month from coming out when the Harvey Weinstein stuff broke, and it was an interesting framework to lay on a novel that was already dealing with sexual politics in the workplace. And for this book, when it was purchased in America, Roe v Wade was overturned, which was really weird for me because I see a fight for abortion care and the lack of available abortions as being a fundamental part of me that’s inextricable from my own Irishness. I just feel like it was a big part of my brain growing up; it was a big part of how I thought about sex and how I always knew that, if things went wrong, you would have to tell your parents that you needed an abortion, and they would have to take you to England. It was so big and scary. And when I was a pre-teen, there was an attempt to legalise abortions in the small number of circumstances where the mother’s life is threatened, and it didn’t go through.

I’m so glad you didn’t ask me this because lots of people do say to me, ‘Irish women - big moment right now!’ – and that’s the question. But I do think there’s something going on where Irish womanhood is a cultural concept that didn’t exist the entire time I was growing up – there were no famous Irish women, not outside of Ireland anyway. There was Colin Pharrell, Cillian Murphy, and Damien Rice who were all bombing around internationally, but there were no famous Irish women, as far as I was concerned anyway. There was no female Damien Rice happening.

And then I feel something happened with the repeal of the 8th Amendment, and also, at around the same time, the equal marriages act was introduced in Ireland. It was like, for all the people in Ireland who felt like they didn’t have a voice, it all just swelled and broke in a way that was so moving and incredible. Like, women I’ve known my entire life who I would have thought of as being quite shy were knocking on doors and talking to old Catholic men about their right to an abortion. It was just the most moving thing I’ve ever lived through. I was in London that whole time, and on the night it went through, it was just me and all these Irish women who were based in London who didn’t know each other in this pub in North London, all holding each other. Honestly, it was the best night of my life.

And I’ve never needed an abortion, but it’s so much more than a medical procedure, it’s a filter through which your country sees you, and how you can express your country. It’s a huge artistic and emotional thing for me. It’s really hard to explain.

Thank you for giving such a thoughtful answer. Just a super quick final question to the lift the mood, which is something we ask every author – do you judge a book by its cover?

Yeah, you can’t not! That is kind of amazing, isn’t it? That you can walk into a shop and pick up something and not even read the back and be like, ‘I just want to read this!’

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