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One of the most intriguing friendships in Irish history has been transformed into fiction the bond between Lord Edward Fitzgerald, aristocrat turned revolutionary, and Tony Small, a runaway slave who saved his life.
Film-maker Neil Jordan is also an award-winning novelist, and this panoramic, painstakingly researched novel told through Small’s voice is a convincing reconstruction of the way their lives interlocked despite origins in diametrically opposed worlds.
One man sprang from Ireland’s most patrician family, the other was born into slavery on an American plantation. They met in 1781 during the American War of Independence, when Small dragged Lord Edward, wounded and unconscious, from a battlefield the young lieutenant was fighting on behalf of the British crown.
9 min read
Ireland s most garlanded director talks about ageism in film, Harvey Weinstein and his new novel, about the aristocratic rebel Lord Edward FitzGerald and his manservant, the freed slave Tony Small
We begin by comparing facial hair. Neil Jordan has cough-cough years on me, but, over the previous 12 months, we seem to have mutated into variations on the same grizzled, spectacled hermit
âHow is that beard coming?â he asks.
Our most garlanded film director â who is currently holed up in his rural Cork pad â has been eyeing the closing, opening and closing again of cinemas with weary interest. Among his greatest pleasures is âwalking down a city centre street and going into the cinemaâ. That wonât be happening for a while.
Multimedia Journalist
Irish fiction continues to thrive and the year ahead offers a feast of novels and short story collections set for publication - we present a choice selection.
Danielle McLaughlin -
The Art of Falling (John Murray, February)
A woman s marriage and career are threatened by an old indiscretion just as she receives the opportunity of a lifetime. Danielle s stories have appeared in
The New Yorker, The Irish Times and
The Stinging Fly, amongst numerous other magazines and anthologies. She has won many awards for her short fiction, collected in
Dinosaurs on Other Planets.
The Art of Falling will be published in January 2021 by Random House in the US
Books to look out for in 2021
Irish fiction
New work that has been a long time coming generates a particular shiver of anticipation.
Small Things Like These (Faber, October) will be Claire Keegan’s first new work since her novella Foster, still a bestseller 10 years on. Her publisher says: “An exquisite wintery parable, Claire Keegan’s long-awaited return tells the story of a simple act of courage and tenderness, in the face of conformity, fear and judgment.” Small Things Like These (Faber, October) will be Claire Keegan’s first new work since her novella Foster, still a bestseller 10 years on. Photograph: Alan Betson