About the author

I was born in Dublin, Ireland, where I now live. I have been writing for many years, but it was not until I wrote the full-length novel “Late Though It Be” that I decided to try getting my work into print. This work was written over a period of three years, and while it requires some editing, particularly in the first two parts, the end result is close to what I originally planned for it. The novel “Night” followed. Despite their considerable differences, both have in common an interest in examining the process of artistic creation and the difficult relationship of the artwork with reality.

I am currently working on a new novel, entitled “The Boy Who Gave Up Speaking”. This deals with Klaus, a young, self-taught sculptor who develops dangerous and destructive ideas about beauty and the role of art, specifically the idea that reality itself must be changed to align it with a preconceived artistic ideal. Thus this novel continues the concern with the relationship of art and life which runs through my work.

Synopsis of LATE THOUGH IT BE

Late Though It Be is a five-part novel of 123,000 words, and deals, on the one hand, with a writer by the name of Thomas Landor and his relationship with a girl called Judith, and on the other with a mysterious individual named Ulrich to whom the narrative turns for the entire second part of the book. The whole narrative is framed and manipulated by an anonymous first-person narrator, who like a Homeric god seems able to change appearance and personality at will to spy on the concerns of the characters. His interference in the first part is considerable; indeed, Part One opens with his “origin”, or rather the event that was the occasion for his deciding to tell the whole story, namely the death of Judith in questionable circumstances by drowning. We learn in Part Two that Ulrich is not only similar in many ways to Landor, he was also Judith’s lover before she left him for Landor. This dual aspect of the story creates an ambiguity surrounding the real reason for Judith’s death, which is not resolved until the very last lines of Part Five, when the narrator himself, in the present tense, sees that it was not Ulrich who was responsible, as we were led to expect, but Landor himself.

Synopsis of NIGHT 

“Night” is a novel of 128,000 words.

There are two components to the narrative: first we have the story of Stefan Knecht, an aspiring PhD student whose project is a completion and analysis of the text of an unfinished novel by one Thomas Landor (protagonist of my previous novel “Late Though It Be”). Second, we have the narrative itself, which deals with a character called Oscar, who works freelance at a small left-wing newspaper and, for reasons best known to himself, has decided to give up sleeping. With one exception, we never really learn what portions of the narrative are Landor’s original work, and what are Knecht’s additions. As the narrative progresses, it becomes clear that Oscar and Knecht form a parallel, and that Knecht is being defined and delineated by means of Oscar. So Oscar’s involvement with Lydia, his friend’s sister, reflects Knecht’s own relationship with a young woman called Marcia Vine, but with one crucial difference: whereas Oscar uses Lydia for his own ends, Marcia deceives and ends up turning the tables on Knecht.

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