‘I’m no longer the newbie’ - Anne Griffin launches new book

‘The Island of Longing’ has been chosen as the Eason ‘Book Of The Month’.

It is the third and latest novel by Mullingar-based author Anne Griffin, and to celebrate, author John Boyne will be in Eason Mullingar today, Wednesday May 10, to officially launch the book at 6.30pm.

It was Boyne, in fact, who first encouraged Anne to put pen to paper. The pair had met while Anne worked in Waterstones in Dublin and went on to become great friends.

“I was in talking to John one day and I was saying I felt a little bit lost, and he said ‘you should just write Anne, even if it’s to just journal stuff’, and within a couple of months I was writing. I began to write a novel which has never seen the light of day but interestingly bares the title ‘The Island of Longing’, so I feel like I’ve come full circle,” Anne told the Westmeath Examiner.

Her two previous novels, When All Is Said and Listening Still, shot Anne Griffin to literary fame. Her new novel deals with family trauma, the fallout from the tragedy of a child going missing, its impact on the family and their relationships.

“I came up with this story one morning while watching my son, who’s 17 now, leaving for school. I have this stupid ritual about goodbyes. He didn’t know it was a ritual, but it was for me,” Anne said.

“So I’d give him a hug at the door, and after our driveway, he has to turn to wave to me again. I then close the door, run up the stairs and I watch him from the window, all the way up through the estate and the last time I see him is the back of his coat through a neighbour’s car window. And I was standing there one morning and the thought occurred to me, ‘What if I never see him again?’. And that was the beginning of this story.”

The ‘Missing’

Anne admits that while it is a hard topic to deal with, anyone who grew up in Ireland will know the story of the nation’s missing sons and daughters. Listing familiar names including 13-year-old Philip Cairns who disappeared in 1986 while walking back to school in south Dublin, Fiona Pender from Tullamore, who at seven months pregnant, disappeared in 1996, or Trevor Deely, who disappeared after his office Christmas party in 2000, and 18-year-old Deirdre Jacob, who went missing near her home in Newbridge, Kildare in 1998, aged 18.

“All those people were front and centre of this book, particularly Deirdre Jacob. This is the most heartbreaking thing – Deirdre Jacob was at her gate, at her home, and she went missing. At the time, I didn’t quite get the impact of how close she was to safety, but now as a mother, she was within an arm’s stretch away from her mother’s hand, effectively. And I wanted to bring that out in the book, how close Saoirse was to home that her mother had actually seen her out the window and turned her back, as we all would have, getting on with the day, gathering up her washing.”

“It is a difficult topic, and I was very aware of that, the same way I was aware that ‘When All Is Said’ too, had a very hard topic at its core. It’s important to discuss those hard topics but also show that within every harsh situation, there are always moments where we can still smile, even in the worst of times.”

Anne does that by returning Rosie to her roots in west Cork, to the fictional Roaring Bay, based on the real Cape Clear Island.

“I wanted to bring that out in the community of west Cork, I’ve a deep love of Cape Clear Island, where this book is set. I have family living there and when I started this book I was actually on Cape Clear Island for four months. I wanted to bring out the simplicity of island life, but also the hardness within that life, as well as the laughter, the quirkiness. I wanted to give Rosie a break and give her some solace.”

Arrival

Now published in 25 territories, Anne feels that having released her third book, she is finally comfortable in her skin as a writer. “For me, it’s not like I always thought this was the career I was going to have, I wasn’t particularly good at English at school. I didn’t enjoy the analysis of texts, I just loved story telling, I loved hearing people talk, telling stories, people like Eamon Kelly, his fairytales, banshees. And while I went on to work in the field of book selling and loved reading for the stories, it wasn’t something I ever thought I’d end up doing.”

Anne says she was drawn to social history, and she studied history at college, “and while I went on to do book selling for eight years, I eventually went into community development work and trained as a community worker.”

She found, however, that she would bring the work home with her, “and I just couldn’t cope with it. Then I got into the financial end of charity work, so I was managing a few finance departments within a couple of big charities but what I realised one day was that I had moved so far away from what I loved, which was people and story telling, I felt like I was losing a grip of myself.”

That’s when John Boyne’s advice telling her to “just write”, came to fruition.

“And once I started I knew I had found my niche,” said Anne. “I mean there’s terribly frustrating days, there are days that you just want to run away, and there are other moments when you get over the hump and allow the writing to come freely, the characters to develop, their conversations, when the whole story begins to make sense – that’s what I love. Those are the brilliant times that get you through.

“And the other wonderful thing is when people do love your writing. Still, today, I’m so insecure about my writing, but I do think there’s a wisdom and a knowledge that comes with years of writing.

“I’m really proud of how, internationally, it just keeps going. When All Is Said is coming out in South Korea, and just recently I’ve secured a Spanish deal to buy all three books, so I’m very lucky that my books have international appeal.

“I’m very proud of this book, as my third book I feel like I’ve finally arrived in writing, that I’m no longer the ‘newbie’. It’s nice not being the new kid on the block, I feel like I’m entering a new phase of maturity and it’s a nice comfortable feeling. And while you never know the road ahead, at least I can say that I’m a fully fledged writer now. There’s a real feeling that I have arrived in my own skin. Finally I’m accepting that I seem to have a bit of a talent for this.”