Show Notes
In our latest Session, Juliet talks to London-based Irish writer Keith Ridgway about his three most recent novels, Hawthorn & Child (2012), A Shock (2021) and Dooneen (2026), recently published by Fitzcarraldo Editions. They discussed the differences between novels and short story collections, and how much they matter; Keith’s fragmentary plots and open-ended use of the ‘detective’ genre; the way Irish ‘experimental’ writers are often read with a national lineage that begins with Joyce, Beckett and Flann O’Brien; the way reformist and radical politics, from the Easter Rising to Corbynism, have been crushed by the British Establishment, and how that comes into Keith’s work; and the pressure on writers not to be pessimistic amidst dark times, and how Keith balances hope and despair in his novels.
In one of our most meta episodes to date, Juliet also asked Keith about his reticence about self-promotion and the obligation for contemporary writers to publicise themselves on social media, and about his scepticism regarding interviews with authors.
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