IRISH writer John Connolly is one of the most prolific authors today. The former journalist has released a novel practically every year, beginning with his debut, Every Dead Thing, in 1999.
Every Dead Thing introduced the character Charlie Parker, a former policeman hunting the killer of his wife and daughter. The book subsequently won the Shamus Award for best first private eye novel, making Connolly the first author outside the US to win the award.
Since then, the 51-year-old has not only come out with at least one Parker novel a year, but also managed to find the time to release over a dozen other books.
They include a successful novella and short stories duology titled Nocturnes, and two book trilogies for young adults – the Samuel Johnson series which deals with the supernatural, and sci-fi series Chronicles of the Invaders, a collaboration he did with his life partner, Jennifer Ridyard.
Connolly’s latest (and 18th) Parker novel is A Book of Bones, which is the end of a six-novel arc that began in The Wolf in Winter (2014).
During a recent interview in Kuala Lumpur, the Dublin-based writer explained: “I rarely use real people in my books.
“I have a very fertile imagination. That is probably why I wasn’t a very good journalist! I am always making stuff up and newspapers always frown [on that].”
Connolly was referring to his five-year stint at The Irish Times. He added: “One of the editors said that if I decided to stay, I would make a good hack.”
By the time he left the paper, Connolly was already writing Every Dead Thing.
I mentioned to Connolly that he reminded me of Lee Child; both of them hail from the UK but write a book series revolving around an American character.
He laughed, and said they shared the same agent, but added that in his case, he grew up in a very insular society – physically, geographically and socially.
Ireland was also very poor, and had to struggle to shake off its colonial heritage and its history of religious oppression and violence.
“It is often said that to be an Irish writer is to be engaged in the nature of Irish-ness,” Connolly said.
“In my early 20s, I wanted nothing less than to be engaged in Irish-ness. Everything about it felt repressive: its literary tradition, religion, politics.
“So American fiction was my escape, it was what I read.
“And also, Irish writers generally do not write mystery fiction. I realised my religious upbringing, my fascination with folklore and mythology, with ghost stories – it all comes from my Irish-ness.
“I felt I needed to create something that did not exist. A weird hybrid that wasn’t quite American, and wasn’t quite European.”
Connolly said that his first novel was rejected by publishers before it was even finished.
“Even when it was published, you’d think it was not going to last. That after three or four books, it would fall by the wayside, [or that] people’s tastes would change. But that didn’t happen.
“A lot of it came down to the character. All good fiction is about the character. So if you are fortunate, readers develop an affection for your character.
“That will enable you to have a career, and that will enable them to forgive that odd bad book because you gave them the pleasure of spending time with a beloved character.”
The supernatural elements in the Charlie Parker series were not prevalent in the first book, but Connolly started adding more with each subsequent book in the series.
“The supernatural is perceived as an antithesis of every mystery.
“Philosophically, mystery fiction is a product of rationalisation, with the understanding that humans can be understood through a process of reasoning and logic.”
Citing Wilkie Collins’ 1868 literary classic The Moonstone (considered to be one of the earliest detective novels), Connolly said that story is filled with supernatural references.
“It doesn’t matter if it is real or not. What matters is that people believe in the possibility of it.”
Throughout the Charlie Parker series, many characters have been killed off, and in A Book of Bones, one of Parker’s allies is at death’s door battling cancer.
Connolly admitted that people do develop affection for characters. But keeping that in mind while writing makes it difficult for the writer, he said, adding “that can restrict the writer”.
He explained that “these characters are getting older and they do recognise their mortality” as the rationale for ‘killing’ them off.
