Delish Magazine

I took Ireland home with me. 

Right across the top, in caps, the big book announced its name. IRELAND, it said, and underneath that, in more demure letters: A Novel. Impressed by the obvious confidence of an author who would lend his book the name of an entire nation, I was moved to read the blurb on the dust jacket. Drawn in by its mention of the seanachai, traditional Irish storytellers (pronounced “SHAN-ah-kee”), and hints of a tapestry woven from history, folklore and fiction, I was very quickly sold. Two pages in, I knew I would have to read everything Frank Delaney had ever written.

And so, as quickly as possible, I picked up Shannon, then Tipperary, and then Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show. And swooned. And laughed. And wept. Delaney’s tremendous insight into all aspects of Irish history—politics, social issues, interpersonal relationships, and the land; always, the land—is mighty. Yet it pales in comparison to his storytelling skills. Rich, deft, and as far removed from glib as physically possible, his writing evokes all of the magic in the best of children’s literature, with adult sensibilities and themes. Brimming with love and respect: for language, for history, for culture, for people, the writing grips you, pulls you in, makes you understand and care very deeply about its subjects. And though he now resides in the US, Delaney makes Ireland come alive for the reader.

Broadcaster, journalist, playwright, stage actor and New York Times bestselling novelist (and banker, but that was a long time ago), the intensely eloquent Delaney adores a good story—the through line, he says, of his career.

“No matter how you boil it down, it’s all storytelling,” he says. “In journalism we call an article in a newspaper a story. Broadcasting is telling the story as it happened, giving it an interest to people. I was always interested in radio, once I heard it as a little boy. I loved the way radio was telling me these stories. But here’s the truth of it: for as long as I can remember, I wanted to write fiction and drama. And I knew because of the way I was brought up in Ireland and because of family limitations and so on and so forth, I was never going to get exactly the shape of education I wanted to teach me these things. So, I figured if I went into broadcasting I was going to be dealing with trained communicators. And that is exactly what happened. At the BBC I was working with some of the most intelligent, educated and professional men in the world. And they taught me how to communicate.”

His latest novel, Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show (published in February), tells the story of a pivotal time, both in Ireland’s political history and in the life of his protagonist, eighteen-year-old Ben McCarthy. Ben’s world is turned upside down when his father abandons the family farm for the company of a young actress, and his mother sends him out to get his father back. So begins an epic odyssey that is deeply personal, while underscoring the broader landscape. An only child, Ben has a well-developed understanding of the human condition and is wise beyond his years—one of several recurring themes in Delaney’s work.

“The cult of youth when I was growing up in Ireland really bothered me,” he says. “The cult of youth which said, ‘You will be children for a long, long time.’ We were never given room to grow. I jettisoned very early the idea that just because you’re young, you can’t do stuff. And just because you’re young, you don’t know stuff. We did stuff. We knew stuff.”

“I grew up at the end of a long family, almost as an only child, because all the associations and societies among my siblings had been formed by the time I came along. So I grew up watching everybody. Some of that has transferred onto Ben. He’s watchful, he’s a watchful boy. And of course, being watchful enables him to achieve things. He’s able to get things done…and in actual fact, he’s able to get the girl, which is really what he’s supposed to be doing.”

Ah, yes: the girl. No slouch in the female character department, Delaney quite obviously loves women, a fact to which he immediately owns up.

“That’s well-observed. I grew up in a house where there was a very, very strong female presence…one couldn’t but grow up observing these women, these amazing women, my sisters and my aunts—I had an absolute bevy of aunts who were very strong women—and my mother. That is bound to creep in and influence what I’m doing hugely. I love the challenge, from a man’s point of view, of creating female characters, because it’s very difficult. And a lot of writers, I think, a lot of male writers, are somewhat afraid of it. There’s a very famous quote from James Joyce’s wife, Nora. She says, ‘He doesn’t know the first thing about women.’ What she meant was that Joyce wrote about women as men imagine them to be, but not as women actually are. And I think the challenge for a writer like me, in this century, is to write about women as they really are. And it’s some challenge, I can tell you!”

Another theme central to Delaney’s work is that of the mythical hero. Each of the protagonists in his most recent novels must pass a series of challenges in order to move on to the next phase for which they’re so yearning. In Ireland, Ronan O’Mara sets out on foot to find the itinerant Storyteller who visited his childhood home; Shannon’s Robert Shannon is an American searching for his Irish roots and for an end to the shellshock brought on by World War II; Tipperary’s Charles O’Brien must wait for years and endure an incredible amount of pain before he can be with the woman he loves. And, of course, Ben McCarthy is tasked with tearing his father away from a woman for whom he’s forsaken everything, and returning him to his rightful home.

Which raises the question: when these quietly epic moments occur in life, what is the lesson? What does one stand to gain in recognizing those patterns?

“If I’m looking to deliver a message, I’ll call Fed Ex—but there is nonetheless a sense in which I feel very strongly that there is a mobilization of youth that could now, if it happened, benefit life in general, enormously. And it’s not happening, and I think it’s because people are so incredibly worried about their futures, and where they’re going to earn their living, and so on and so forth,” he says. “You’ve seen in this country, in the last eighteen months, a most extraordinary change, where a young man—and nobody ever refers to this—where a young man became president. And he’s a young man in every way. He goes out shooting hoops with his pals, even in the White House. He’s a youthful figure. It is the time when youth has to wake up, again.

“Several years ago, I was invited to speak in a fine university in Scotland. A traditional university that leans very heavily to the left. Margaret Thatcher was in power, which changed everything. And she was a complete and utter disaster for England in terms of education. When I went there and addressed them, I found that the student body had moved completely to the right. I said to them, Why are you doing this? And they said, Because when you’re in left-wing politics here, and you go for a job interview after you graduate, there’s a very strong chance that you won’t get a job. And I thought, what are we doing to our children?”

While working for the BBC in London, Delaney created and hosted a radio show called Word of Mouth, which, he says now, “stemmed entirely from my own fascination with the English language.” On days when he was slated to record the show, he woke up in the wee hours from sheer excitement.

“We used to do extraordinary things. We’d go to a soccer match in France, and we’d hear the various chants, and the curses the players were hurling at one another, and that the crowds were hurling at the players, and we’d trace the roots of that. And some of [the expressions] went back to sixteenth century France! It’s a kind of ongoing treasure trove. It was a fabulous existence doing that show,” he says.

He speaks “menu French” and “menu Italian”, and used to broadcast in Gaelic. He’s also kept up with the Latin he learned in school, and does his own translations whenever necessary. But it’s the English language that has his heart.

“For pleasure, I will always read the dictionary. And what’s even better is a dictionary of etymology, where you get the actual root of the word, and you see where the word came from. That’s great fun. When I die, one of my few regrets will be that I will no longer be able to use the English language. That’s what I’d be thinking about while I’m dying—one of the things, as well as missing my loved ones—I’d be thinking, Goddamnit! I’m now going to a place where there won’t be any language!”

Currently, his contract with Random House specifies one novel per year until 2012 for the next several years. He’s working his way chronologically through Ireland’s twentieth century; Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show leaves off in 1932, and he’s just recently finished its sequel, The Matchmaker of Kenmare. As his characters are fond of saying, if you need something done, ask a busy man. But Delaney shrugs off the suggestion that he’s doing anything unusual.

“It keeps me off the streets and out of the bars,” he laughs.