Masculinity and Identity: A Conversation with Fíona Scarlett
“So, I guess there’s a lot in the book from my own experience of where I’m from, and I wanted to make sure it was as authentic as possible because I wanted to honour Dublin and its people – I really wanted to show a sense of community.”
I hope you don’t mind me starting with this question because it sounds like a spoiler, but I promise our reader, it isn’t! I found it interesting that you decided to mention Finn’s death really early on in the book, so I wanted to ask how you came to that decision?
So, from the very, very beginning, I wanted the reader to know very early on that Finn had died and you sort of twig it in the first couple of pages and then, as the book goes on, you know for definite that he has died. It was always going to be that way and when the book sold, it was still that way and it was only when I was deep into the editing process that I thought, oh god, is there any tension here? Am I ruining the whole book for people if they know very early on? But when I thought it through, I realised it was going to be a completely different book if you find out later because the book is an exploration of love and grief, and I didn’t want it to be a cheap shot for the reader – I think it just wouldn’t be the book that I was trying to write if I didn’t write from the beginning about that he had died.
I know what you mean. So instead of being a big ‘reveal’, you want readers to focus on the grief as it develops instead of constantly thinking, ‘will he die or will he be okay?’
It’s funny though because people have said to me that even though they know he has died, they’re still hoping that he hasn’t!
Which I guess mirrors the human experience because, even if you find out somebody has a terminal diagnosis, there’s always a part of your brain thinking maybe it will be okay… My next question is about a quote I read about your book that describes it as being a book that explores ‘what is means to be male against the gritty backdrop of Dublin and what it means to be free,’ The first bit of that quote is self-explanatory, but I wondered if you could talk to me about that sense of what it means to be free?
That’s really interesting because I don’t think I’ve really picked up on that before. I think the book looks a lot at choice, and the privilege of choice too – sometimes we take choice for granted. So, if you look at Joe and where he’s coming from and the friendships he has, he doesn’t have that privilege of being able make a choice that he can then get out of again. Also, it’s exploring the idea of whether we have free will in the choices we make, or do our circumstances and outside forces impact on that free will?
Yes, the privilege and freedom of choice makes total sense – I hadn’t thought about it in that way! My next question touches on identity as – as you’re probably aware – some authors have been criticised for writing from a perspective that isn’t theirs, whether it’s a different racial, class or gender identity, so I wanted to ask how you went about writing a compassionate snapshot of a very specific experience?
Exactly – I didn’t want to make any sort of point and I didn’t want to be condescending or patronising in the way I portrayed this family. There’s a lot of my own father in this book, my da is from inner city Dublin, but something I really wanted to portray – which I find fascinating – is the idea that, if you’re from a certain area in Dublin, like where I’m from, everybody in that area is automatically deemed to be disadvantaged. There’s definitely a judgement made based on postcode. So, I guess there’s a lot in the book from my own experience of where I’m from, and I wanted to make sure it was as authentic as possible because I wanted to honour Dublin and its people – I really wanted to show a sense of community. Actually, I think the hardest part was having to remove myself from the story and let it speak for itself, which is why I found Joe the hardest character to write because he’s such a guarded character, but also, I had to try hard to not make excuses for him. I had to cut a lot of writing out because I found that, I suppose as a mother, I was explaining his actions a lot, so I had to remember to be truthful to the characters above everything else.
That makes complete sense, and I guess you actually want the readers themselves to think about why Joe is acting how he is… Very seamless, my next question is about Joe! I wanted to ask about his character, and specifically how he straddles these two very different worlds – he is embedded in his community and has friends from his local primary school, but he also has a scholarship at a private school. I find these situations really interesting because it’s almost as though he belongs to both groups while also belonging to neither. Was this something that you always wanted to be a central part of his identity and character arc?
Yes, that was always going to be part of Joe and, even though I didn’t intend to make points about class, a lot of that comes through in his character, and the question of whether he is ever really accepted. Where Joe is in his life, he was always straddling to an extent because he never really fit in, and he thought he could just keep his head down, get through school, leave who he is and where he’s from and that would be the end of it, but you can’t ever really do that – it’s always going to be part of you. I think it made sense for Joe to be straddling these two words because it raises this idea of belonging and it’s really with Finn that he had that sense of belonging, so he’s trying to find a new sense of belonging after Finn dies because he doesn’t have anything to pin to anymore.
Read the full interview in our Family issue
