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You’ve written books, films, TV shows and plays. Which of your projects do fans most want to talk to you about?
The one that people react to most, particularly women, is The Woman Who Walked Into Doors [about a woman experiencing domestic violence]. It came out in 1996, but even now – I was at a book signing event in Auckland a couple of days ago and two women told me quietly that that book meant so much to them. I think it’s possibly the best book I’ve written.
You’ve been living with Paula Spencer, the protagonist of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, for decades – from the TV series she originally appeared in, to your trilogy of novels. What’s the most surprising way she’s turned up in your everyday life?
When Covid started, I went to get my first vaccination, and I felt slightly elated coming home. I was driving and I thought: I wonder what Paula would have made of that? And that’s where The Women Behind the Door came from. By the time I got home and parked the car, I had the guts of the story and I knew that’s what I was going to be working on for the next couple of years.
[Another time] I remember seeing a picture on Facebook of a woman I taught when I was a school teacher, who would be in her late 50s now. She was wearing a plaid shirt, jeans and white trainers, and I thought: Paula dresses like that. I gave her the shirt [in the novel], a plaid shirt that her son-in-law didn’t want to wear. And she loves the freedom of it, you know. It’s as if relatively later in life she’s found the outfit that she really likes.
In a couple of years you both turn 70 – what will you get her?
Well, she doesn’t exist. Sometimes I delude myself, but she doesn’t exist. But I suppose there is the possibility I will give her another book. The only thing is, you need a form of energy – I don’t know how to describe it, a sort of itch – to write. I have it at the moment, I just finished a book, and there has never been a long period where I haven’t had it, but I assume at some point that itch won’t be there. So that would be a good present to give Paula, ie myself: the itch to write another novel.
What book do you always return to, and why?
I think the book I’ve read more than any other is Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Just brilliant. It’s not one of the big fat Dickens books, which I love; it’s slimmer, but it’s just amazing. It’s got these great characters, brilliant plot.
What’s the best piece of advice you have ever received?
I remember there were points, you know, feeling very low. A lot of people really successful in their fields would tell you in quiet moments that they often feel impostor syndrome, and I would have felt that on occasion. I would have felt out of place at literary functions and things like that. [One time] I was talking to somebody about how I was lucky, and this man said: “You shouldn’t say lucky. You self-published your first book [The Commitments], for example – you did that, it didn’t drop from the sky.” He said: “Perhaps you should start thinking about feeling grateful instead.” It changed the way I thought about myself, to a degree.
What advice do you give other writers?
One piece of advice I constantly give people is: be kind to yourself. Quantity first – fill pages, fill pages, fill pages. Then gradually begin to worry about quality. But don’t assume that the first sentence you write is going to be the first sentence in the finished story. Allow yourself to explore, allow yourself to write too much. It’s a bit like a relationship: you meet somebody, gradually you get to know them by listening, by talking to them. And it’s the same with starting off on a story or a novel, you gradually get to know the characters you’re writing about, the tone of the piece, the language that might bring the reader closer to them, your own style. But you won’t know it immediately. At the end of the day, if you can say “I wrote 1,000 words today”, that’s way more important, in the early stages, than “I wrote 50 really great words.” And when you hit, say, 50,000 words, there’s no escaping the fact you’re writing a novel.
American producers said you’d have to take the swear words out of The Commitments to make it into a movie. Famously incorrect. What’s your favourite swear word?
Fuck, fucking and fucker. There’s a great Dublin phrase – geebag – to describe somebody. Gee is a rough translation of the Irish for vagina, but a geebag can be male or female. My daughter came home at Christmas a few years ago, and she had two carved wooden decorations for the tree. One said gobshite – my father’s favourite – and the other said geebag. It’s a favourite.
Who is the most overrated writer? And do you want to cause a ruckus again and say James Joyce?
No! The way that was reported was very partial. I’ve read Ulysses twice, you know. You don’t do that unless – I’m not a sadist, as far as I know. I said it could have done with a good edit, but it was in front of an audience and the audience laughed – as I hoped they would. I do think the whole academic world around Joyce is in some ways unfortunate. When there are books about Joyce scholarship, then it becomes just daft. But I don’t think he’s overrated as such. And if I had to bring a book on a long flight and the only book I could grab was Ulysses, I’d happily bring it and I’d happily read it. I’d know which chapters maybe I could skip and go on to the ones I really love. It’s a pain in the arse, when you’re a Dublin writer – you’re inevitably asked about Joyce, and it’s tedious. He doesn’t have copyright on the streets of Dublin.
Which writer present or past would you most like to have two pints with, and why?
Dickens would be good company, just for a short while. He’s probably a bit overbearing. I’m really interested in his creative energy, which is astonishing, and the way that he carried the bad stuff of his life and made art out of it. And I kind of try to put the blinkers on and ignore his behaviour regarding his wife and children, which was horrible. But I think I’d enjoy being in his presence for the duration of two pints. I don’t think I’d stay for the third.
What song do you want played at your funeral?
The theme music from [BBC football show] Match Of The Day. I’ve been watching it since I was a child. The music has never changed. They tried to change it once, people complained. I just think the beat and tone and rhythm and silliness of it as the curtains close and the coffin goes off – it’d be nuts.
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Roddy Doyle is speaking at Sydney writers’ festival on Saturday 23 May at 6pm. His latest book is The Women Behind the Door (Penguin)
