SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The Irish writer Louise Kennedy is out with a new novel. But she's written about its main character before. Roisin is 15 years old when we meet her. And when I spoke with Kennedy this week, I asked her what drew her back to that character.
LOUISE KENNEDY: Her voice is that of a teenager, you know, a kind of young teenager who's recently moved from the north of Ireland to the south. And she's not very happy. You know, she practically had to be dragged over the border. And she hasn't managed to find a way to fit in, in school. And she's pretty angry and she's also kind of misinterpreting things. And I thought, because she's isolated and she's an only child, I'd maybe like to give her another chance and give her a friend. And that friend is Red.
PFEIFFER: Red is your classic good-looking, troubled young man that young women are often drawn to, like Roisin. The core of this book, called "Stations," is about the intense grip of first love. And I was impressed by how well Louise Kennedy captures the all-consuming passion of adolescence. So I asked her how she did it, especially since she's nearly 60 years old, far from that stage of life.
KENNEDY: I sort of think maybe this is, like, really weird that I was able to drop so easily into the mind of a teenage girl, you know, who's, like, pining for some young fella. Yeah, I don't know what it is. I mean, I have two grown-up children. They're in their 20s. So it isn't that long since they were in their teens. And I do remember watching, I think because my own adolescence was so utterly miserable.
PFEIFFER: (Laughter).
KENNEDY: And I did watch them kind of make their way through school and just think, oh, God, if I could do it for you, I would and spare them the pain of it all.
PFEIFFER: There is, it seems, a very autobiographical element to this where you're largely channeling you and your history in this book. Is that fair to say?
KENNEDY: Yeah, I think so. So what I knew about Roisin when I began writing the book were the things that I had made part of her character and part of her background in the story "Belladonna." So, you know, like me, she left the north of Ireland when she was 12 at the end of the '70s. You know, like my family, it was for various reasons to do with the Troubles. I should stress that Roisin's father is a former member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and my father is very keen for me to tell people that he was never...
PFEIFFER: (Laughter).
KENNEDY: ...In the RUC (laughter).
PFEIFFER: Right, because this was quite...
KENNEDY: Yeah.
PFEIFFER: It caused quite a lot of trouble for Roisin's father.
KENNEDY: It did. Yeah, for sure. But, you know, the Troubles caused problems in my family as well. You know, we had a bar that was bombed a couple of times. And my father was subjected to, like, sectarian intimidation at work, and so on, which is why we left. And I have, certainly, miserable years in school as well. Nobody liked me. So, you know, I could drop straight into that with Roisin.
PFEIFFER: Language and pronunciation also plays a key role in this story, whether you're from north or south, based on how you say things. In fact, even whether you say Roisin or Roisin. And so it becomes a marker of where you're from, what your class is. It's a subtlety that an outsider may not understand but means quite a lot to people who are insiders.
KENNEDY: Yeah. I mean, I think that was - you know, some of those things were kind of like revelations as well, because people now tell me that the accent in the north of Ireland is like - they say they love it and they think it's beautiful. But certainly, when we left the north for the south, you know, people were generally very unimpressed south of the border to have us around. I think they would've preferred if we'd kept whatever dreadful belligerence that, you know, had fallen on us as far away from them as possible.
PFEIFFER: (Laughter).
KENNEDY: I think as well for, you know, when Roisin arrives in the south, she's teased a lot for her accent. And that happened to me, too. So, I mean, I speak with a southern accent now because, you know, after a few months of, you know, every time I open my mouth, I was teased by my classmates - you know, I expected to be teased. But I expected it to wear off after a while. But there was no sign of it stopping. So I just went home one Friday, because I'm a good mimic, and thought, I'm not going to be speaking like that when I go back.
PFEIFFER: (Laughter).
KENNEDY: And, yeah, when I went back on Monday, I was speaking like all the girls in my class. But actually, you know, far from them thinking that I was now acceptable, I'd say they probably just thought I was a bit mad.
PFEIFFER: (Laughter).
KENNEDY: So that backfired terribly.
PFEIFFER: Yeah. Your book also shows this really devastating portrait of addiction and of Red, in particular, unraveling. And you do it in a very powerful way, simply by showing us his decline. There's a part where he shows up after Roisin hadn't seen him in a while, and you wrote that there was a stye growing on his left lower lid. His lashes were crusty. There was a deposit of tartar on his lower gums. And that was so powerful at showing his decline. What were you trying to convey with that portrait of addiction, and then what can and can't be done to help people that that's happening to?
KENNEDY: I'm really interested in the body. And, you know, how we are or how we're feeling or what we're doing shows on us in a really kind of physical way. So I think, without thinking, I just used description like that. I think, with addiction - this book is about love, but I also think it's about regret. And it's about Roisin's regret. I think she always wonders if she could've done more. And I have mixed feelings about that because recovering addicts will always say, it doesn't matter what anybody does, that they need to reach a point. And I don't even mean rock bottom because it's not for me to say what that is.
But, you know, until they reach a point where they want to, you know, get clean or sober or whatever it is, that nobody really can help them. But I don't know if - I can't see how that's fully true because I'd imagine that people need a lot of support if they're going to tackle something as all-engulfing as that. But I think that Roisin's regret maybe is that she didn't try hard enough. So maybe the answer is just that we should try, and not expect results, but maybe we should just try.
PFEIFFER: Just try, yeah.
KENNEDY: And try to be there. Yeah.
PFEIFFER: I want to say one thing about my appreciation for your writing. There are so many lines and words that I thought, my God, this woman is such a beautiful writer. And little things. There was a teacher once monitoring some kind of dance or school gathering. And you described that teacher as watching like a raptor. And I thought, what a great word.
KENNEDY: (Laughter).
PFEIFFER: And then there was a point where you said that someone's legs were protruding from her mother's coat like a pair of celery stalks. And again, I thought, oh, how did she come up with that image?
KENNEDY: Oh, God. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, I think that's, like, based on my own legs when I was...
PFEIFFER: (Laughter).
KENNEDY: Yeah, my kind of white, Irish, skinny adolescent legs sticking out of clothes. Yeah, when I was a teenager. Yeah, like celery stalks (laughter).
PFEIFFER: I have one personal question for you, which I hope isn't too personal. In your acknowledgments, you thank a medical team and an oncologist who had cared for you, I believe, after a melanoma diagnosis. Are you OK? I'm sure many of your readers wonder if you're OK.
KENNEDY: Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, so I had melanoma twice. I was diagnosed with it. So, basically, I had a mole that went bananas in early 2019. And I had surgery for that. And then it came back again in kind of late 2021. And it was Stage 4, so they had to bring out the big guns. So I was on these crazy immunotherapy drugs for about two years. But they worked, which is amazing. So I've had clear scans for a few years now. And, you know, I'm still being monitored. But I think the team are pretty happy that they caught everything.
PFEIFFER: Good. I'm so glad. I'm glad to hear that. And I hope it means we can read much more of your writing in years to come.
KENNEDY: Oh, thank you.
PFEIFFER: That is author Louise Kennedy. Her new novel is "Stations." Thank you.
KENNEDY: Thank you so much.
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