Joseph O'Connor
Critic, playwright, and novelist Joseph O'Connor has long been a literary star in his native Ireland. His historical fiction epic Star of the Sea chronicles the chaos aboard a leaky ship voyaging from Ireland to New York during the harsh winter of 1847, and was selected as a Summer 2003 pick in our Discover Great New Writers program.
Good To Know
In our interview, O'Connor shared some fun facts about himself: "As a university student, I once had a summer job selling plastic refuse sacks over the telephone. Rather worryingly, I was not too bad at it."
"I was born on 20 September, 1963, the anniversary of the day on which various pieces of Robert Emmet, the great 19th century Irish patriot, were separated from one another by British uniformed persons with the aid of an axe and scaffold. As a result of this haunting coincidence, my parents very nearly named me Emmet O'Connor. Quite a good name for a novelist, actually."
"I have always wanted to write a novel called The Old One-Two, but I haven't the faintest idea what it might be about."
"I'm afraid I have little time for hobbies, other than music, which I've mentioned above. My wife and I sometimes go to the opera. We're lucky enough to get to travel a lot, often because of work -- she's a screenwriter. As the father of a lively three-year old boy, I occasionally catch Barney or Clifford, the Big Red Dog. But secretly I prefer the ,I>Bear in the Big Blue House -- better stories and more moral ambiguity."
"Other ways of unwinding include regular and deafeningly loud doses of J. S. Bach, the great Muddy Waters, or George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers. As for literary dislikes, I do have one big one. Despite its newfound popularity, I must confess that I simply don't get the point of Tolkien's work, that sad little circus of hobbitry and Elvish. How profound must one's weariness of the real world have become to want to burrow into the recesses of Middle Earth like a disappointed mole. Some people I love swear that The Lord of the Rings is a masterpiece, but I am firmly on the side of C. S. Lewis, who is said to have sighed, on reading an early draft: ‘Oh, for God's sake, Tolkien. Not another elf story.'"
