Colm TRUTHS
Trump’s a ‘lazy fat lump’. The Oscars were a ‘night you learned your place’. And don’t get him started on the THREE times he’s missed out on the Booker prize. Brilliantly witty Brooklyn author Colm Tóibín lets rip
Widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest living writers, Colm Tóibín is no slouch in the talking stakes, either. The bestselling author of Brooklyn and Nora Webster swings easily from highbrow discussion of Greek myth, gay rights and Irish nationhood to gossipy takes on the Oscars, Bob Dylan and Donald Trump.
Take his theory on Dylan – ‘a great songwriter, rather than a great poet’ – winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. ‘At the moment when Trump was about to emerge, you’re thinking, “Who is the opposite to Trump?” Dylan is such a hard worker, whereas Trump seems like a big fat lazy man. A lazy lump. Dylan’s wryness and coolness, his sexiness, his gravelly voice, his good jokes and self-deprecation – all that is the opposite to Trump. Therefore, the Swedes wanted to say: “Here’s a great artist, from the same country and the same generation.”’
Later, he throws a highly entertaining wobbler over literary prizes. When I commend him on winning his fair share, he’s having none of it. ‘Hold on a minute,’ he shouts. ‘I lost the Booker Prize three times!’ Shortlisted for The Blackwater Lightship (1999), The Master (2004) and The Testament Of Mary (2012), Tóibín missed out on each occasion. He came closest with The Master, his fictional account of the life of Henry James, losing by a whisker to Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line Of Beauty.
‘That was a hard night,’ he admits. ‘The Master was tough. But by the time of The Testament Of Mary, I was used to losing. You just sit there and think, “Here I am, come to lose another Booker!”’
He may not have a Booker or a Nobel but Tóibín, 62, has a wicked sense of humour and several other accolades to fall back on. Brooklyn, the tale of Eilis, a young woman who travels from rural Ireland in the early Fifties to forge a new life in New York, won the 2009 Costa Book Award. In 2015 it was adapted for a film starring Saoirse Ronan, Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent, bagging a Bafta and three Oscar nominations.
Tóibín went along for the ride, sneaking a cameo in the film – ‘I’m the guy just in front of Saoirse as she comes into America’ – and attending the Academy Awards alongside Ronan, director John Crowley and screenwriter Nick Hornby. ‘Oscars night was terribly funny,’ he says. ‘It was a night where you learned your place: “You’re just a novelist, go home.” The one thing they don’t want around the Oscars is authors. We’re always wearing the wrong clothes, we just look wrong. All the others got on the red carpet because they were up for Oscars. I wasn’t. If I’d stretched out my hand, I could have touched Charlotte Rampling but she was on the other side of the barrier, the posh side, and she would probably have told me to go away in a very Rampling-esque way. We got stuck at the very back of the hall. Every time there was an advertising break we could at least go and get a drink, which is more than you could say for the people up for the awards.’ He laughs. ‘To be honest, it was a bigger night when the film opened in my home town, Enniscorthy. It was like Oscars night, except in Enniscorthy the clothes were better and people were better looking.’
By the end of the film’s promotional tour he’d become friends with Hornby, author of High Fidelity and About A Boy. ‘We called him Nick O’Hornby because the Irish people had taken him to their heart,’ he says. At the beginning of the process, however, Tóibín kept his distance. ‘We weren’t in touch as he was writing the screenplay. I didn’t have his email address or phone number. I didn’t bother him, and I didn’t think he wanted me to bother him. It’s his work. I think you’d have to be a bed-wetter to sign the film contract and then start making a fuss over yourself. You’d be really stupid.’
Though Tóibín has been regarded as an outstanding talent since his second novel, The Heather Blazing, in 1992, the success of Brooklyn took him to a new level of popularity. Unsurprisingly, he has a theory. ‘The thing about the film and the novel, is that the Americans saw it as being about them, whereas I saw it as entirely Irish,’ he says. ‘The American myth of origin involves someone arriving alone with a coat over their arm and a suitcase, not knowing anything. It hit a spot. And it was good financially because it sold well in America.’
Ah yes, filthy lucre. A few years ago, he created a stir by suggesting the best thing about writing was ‘the money’. He was, he says, misinterpreted. ‘What I said was, writing itself, the grim business of finishing the page and pulling stuff up out of yourself, does not give pleasure. What does give pleasure? Well, when you open an envelope and it’s not a bill, it’s a cheque from something you’ve written, you think, “Mmm, that’s nice.” That’s all I said. That got moved into: “I only do it for the money.” What novelist would say that? If I said that, I’d be writing much more commercial books. I’d be Philippa Gregory. I’d be trying to write Rumpole Of The Bailey.’
He’s doing all right, though, with homes in Ireland, Spain and New York. His boyfriend lives in Los Angeles, where Tóibín wrote much of his new novel, House Of Names, which transforms the ancient Greek myth of Electra, Clytemnestra and Orestes into thrilling – and chilling – human drama. He says he can write anywhere. ‘My boyfriend says it’s like being with someone in a trance. I’m completely locked up in the book.’
He’s at his Dublin home today, although he spends increasing amounts of time in the home he recently built near Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, where he was raised. He returns often to his childhood in his work. The Heather Blazing, The Blackwater Lightship, Nora Webster and Brooklyn are set around Enniscorthy, drawing from personal experience and observation. ‘Every so often I get another book from it and then it goes away again.’
He has witnessed an ‘unimaginable change’ in Ireland in recent times. As a gay man growing up in an oppressively religious country, his coming out was ‘slooooow!’ He views the 2015 referen-
‘At the Oscars I learned my place: “You’re just a novelist – go home”’
dum that legalised gay marriage as a watershed moment. ‘We had to start getting our families involved. All the things that matter in Ireland, like family, came to the fore. Mothers went from door to door saying, “My son is gay, can you lend us your vote?” We learned to shut up for a while, gay people. We let our auntie do our talking.’ It’s hard to imagine Tóibín letting anyone do his talking for him. His attitude to life is full tilt, exemplified by an obsessively competitive approach to tennis. ‘I still think I’m John McEnroe,’ he laughs. ‘I’ve never given up hope. I chase everything, I let no ball go. My mixed-doubles partner looks at me and says, “Oh Colm, your little legs…”’ Long may he run. Colm Tóibín reads from House Of Names (Viking €16.99) at The West Cork Literary Festival on Wednesday, July 19. He appears at the Galway Arts Festival on Sunday, July 23.