Tana French on her new novel, Faithful Place
Tana French’s first novel, In the Woods, was published in 2007; it won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry awards for Best First Novel and the IVCA Clarion Award for Best Fiction. In the Woods and her second novel, The Likeness, were both New York Times bestsellers.
I think, when you get down to it, this book probably came out of three things: Dublin’s old neighbourhoods, the Dublin sense of humour, and a suitcase in a skip.
Faithful Place is a nonexistent street in the very real, and very old, neighbourhood of Dublin’s Liberties. I grew up moving from continent to continent, going to international schools full of other kids who were just as chronically transient as I was. Probably because of that, I’ve always been fascinated by people and places with deep roots – neighbourhoods whose history goes back centuries, families who’ve lived in the same home for generations. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have friends you’ve known since the whole bunch of you were in nappies, to live among families whose stories are inextricably intertwined with your family’s, to know that all of your personalities and journeys are shaped by hundreds of years of these people and this place.
Back in the 80s, a lot of Dublin neighbourhoods still had that kind of roots. It was a small, tight-knit city – the population was practically 100% Irish born and bred, because who would want to immigrate to a country that was in the depths of a recession; you couldn’t walk through town without running into someone you knew; young couples starting out still aimed to buy homes near their parents. That’s changed since – the property bubble forced a lot of my generation out to the back of beyond, because they couldn’t afford to buy in the neighbourhoods where they grew up, and communities shifted and disintegrated – but some neighbourhoods, including the Liberties, are tough and adaptable enough that they’re still hanging in there: the area’s character may be shifting and changing all the time, but underneath all that, it’s still the same place. Having roots that go that deep has its good sides and its bad sides; I think both of them are fascinating, and I wanted to write about both.
Then there was the sense of humour. Frank Mackey was a lot of fun to write in The Likeness, where he shows up as Cassie’s old undercover boss. I was trying to give him a tinge of the Dublin sense of humour, which isn’t quite like any other: it’s sharp, fast, almost aggressive, very black and very creatively vulgar, and it’s used to deal with just about any situation. I knew I wanted to write about Frank again, and use that sense of humour in situations where he was pushed to the edge – because the other thing about Frank is that his moral sense isn’t like most people’s. For him, the end absolutely justifies the means: he’s both ruthless and fearless, willing to do absolutely anything to himself or anyone else, in order to get his man. I was interested in what would happen if he found himself in a situation where he actually had to risk not only himself, but the people he loved best, in order to get to the truth.
And then there was the skip. There’s always a point, when I’m about halfway through writing a book, when my mind wants to do absolutely anything else – all of a sudden, cleaning the oven or painting my toenails seems like the most urgent and fascinating job in the world. The good thing about this is that it’s usually when I get an idea for the next book. I was walking home one day, when I was about halfway through writing The Likeness and I passed an old Georgian house that was being gutted. Outside it was a skip piled with rubbish – mouldy wallpaper, broken lamps, and a battered old suitcase. I started wondering how long the suitcase had been in that house, what was inside it, who had left it there – whether they had meant to come back for it someday, and never got the chance…
In a lot of ways, Faithful Place is a love song to Dublin – both the tight-knit, scrappy Dublin of the 80s and the confused, shellshocked Dublin of today. It’s my home, to the extent that an international brat can really claim anywhere as home, and I love it, in every incarnation.
