Sunday Business Post

August 6 2023 Magazine

Novelist Liz Nugent talks to Aoife Barry about her favourite protagonist, ageism and sexism in publishing, and why so many women writers are drawn to crime.

Crime writer Liz Nugent is known for her fascinatingly devious characters: men and women who lie, manipulate and murder their way to getting what they want. But while writing her latest novel Strange Sally Diamond, something unusual happened. For her fifth book she had created a protagonist she didn't just like, but loved.

“I’ve never really loved, really adored a character like I have Sally," says Nugent, sipping tea during some rare post-publication downtime in her Dublin kitchen. She's in the middle of bouncing from one literary event to another - we're chatting because she'll be at Kilkenny Arts Festival later this month for a double interview alongside Una Mannion, another novelist who is adept at writing thrilling literary stories.

Sally Diamond is indeed a diamond among the rough in Nugent's oeuvre. Though she's the victim of terrible abuse, she finds her own way of dealing with the trauma. "She's just a really decent human being suddenly confronted with this traumatic background, and she is not remotely as obsessed by it as everybody around her is," Nugent explains. "She has this kind of neurodivergence which is not a named condition, but she is different because of the trauma she suffered as a child.

"I really enjoyed writing her because I could have her say the things that I don't want to say, and express the feelings I'm scared to express. My favourite thing that she says is: 'I don't wear a bra. I don't understand why women wear one, they're so uncomfortable.' Never a truer word said!" Before her career in publishing, Nugent worked in theatre and TV (including touring with Riverdance and writing for Fair City). She began producing short stories and scripts, winning competitions and creating a burgeoning literary career.

Her first novel, the bestselling Unravelling Oliver, was published in 2014 when she was 46. The polyphonic story of a man who abuses his wife gripped readers and placed Nugent in the Irish crime- writing pantheon. She's been one of the country's best-selling authors ever since.Nugent says her readers are across all demographics. Perhaps this is because her gift lies in (Sally Diamond aside) creating monstrous characters who feel like someone you could meet walking down the street, or at a party, or on holiday in the Cote d'Azur.

Maybe they remind you of an ex. If they remind you of yourself, seek help. The first-person perspective she tends to favour gives the reader a first-class ticket to a journey inside her characters' minds. Nugent's fans include fellow writers like Anthony Horowitz and lan Rankin, but also Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe, former rugby international Brian 'Driscoll and presenter / author Graham Norton, she says, sounding surprised and appreciative. "Black writers and Asian writers have been so supportive of me - [also] older men, younger women, people of all genders. I just have a really loyal following of readers. I think it's because I include them in my books.

While Nugent's protagonists are typically (though not always) part of a middle-class milieu, her wider characters come from a range of backgrounds. For example, there's a strong lesbian relationship in Strange Sally Diamond based on the Scottish crime author Val McDermid and her wife Joanne Sharp, whom Nugent spent time with in New Zealand, where part of the book is also set. "They are so funny together - they're like a double act. They're really fun, but serious people at the same time." she says.

Nugent is clearly thoughtful about who she represents in her novels. This ties in with her desire to use fiction as a way of exploring social topics - not just from a contemporary perspective, but demonstrating how they have evolved over time. "I would say there's a feminist thread running through all my books," she says. In the book, Sally's father is a psychiatrist and takes the lead on her case after she's found in a disturbing familial situation. Even if Nugent would have preferred Sally's adoptive mother to take the lead, representing the period correctly meant she couldn't allow that.

"If you're writing about Ireland in any time before the millennium, you have to address the inequalities that were there - rampant inequalities, she says. "In other books, I've referred to the mother and baby homes, I've referred to gay relationships, the lack of abortion services, people being forced to have babies when they didn't want them." On that latter point, she has lots to say about the judgment of women who transgress society's rules around motherhood. While she notes that plenty of male detectives who don't have relationships with their children are written about, you never get a story where "the woman is the hero" and has left her kids. "That doesn't happen. So when I write about women who abandon their kids, they have to be kind of psychopathic, or sociopathic, because nobody can accept that a woman ... it's like a man's right' to leave his family. A woman can't do it unless she's actually evil." She also notes that it's not always so simple, and "fathers and mothers are treated entirely differently depending on each circumstance" of a crime.

At Kilkenny Arts Festival, Nugent will be in conversation with Mannion, author of The Crooked Tree and Tell Me What I Am, in a chat moderated by author Declan Burke. Nugent and Mannion met for the first time at Listowel Writers' Week. "She came to publishing late in life, like I did, so we have a lot in common," Nugent says. Mannion published her debut book in her early 50s. There has recently been much discourse around the idea of being an "older" writer, and about literary awards that have an age cut-off. Irish author Joanna Walsh has been lobbying on this matter through the Twitter account @noentry_arts, which highlights what she calls "age-barred opportunities in the arts”. "I think if I had written a book at 20 or 25, I wouldn't have had very much to say," Nugent reflects. "I would have had so little life experience. I'm exempting Sally Rooney from that, by the way - I think she's a wonderful writer. "She's done so much for Irish writing in general. But when I was 27, I would have had nothing to say. And I would have had no story."

Every debut should be celebrated based on the merit of the book, says Nugent, and age cut-offs for awards are "like separating tall writers from short writers…we're all just writers". She adds with a wry laugh: "I think the problem, honestly, is so sexist because it is always about the young writer. And young writers, just because they are younger, are bound to be better-looking." Being published in her 40s and into her 50s means that Nugent is bringing considerable life experience with her, as well as lived experience of the evolving social and political roles of Irish women. "Irish women's lives have changed so much since I was born in 1967," she says. "So to be able to mark that through the prism of a crime novel is... I'm not saying that it's more valid than non- fiction, but it's a more accessible way for readers to actually find out what Ireland was like during those times."

Scan the shelves in any Irish bookshop this month and you'll find new works by Irish female crime writers such as Catherine Ryan Howard, Catherine Kirwan, Amanda Cassidy and Andrea Mara, to name but four. Why are women so drawn to crime? It's in part because they "are more attuned to threat", says Nugent, “and this feeds into their crime writing. They're the ones who walk with car keys clutched between their fingers.” Nugent recounts how she never goes through her local park alone at night, while her husband does. "I think we're getting our fears out on the page. We're expressing our fears through the traumas that we write about. And we don't do it in a gratuitous way."

It's undoubtedly this personal experience that also draws readers to books like hers. In the Irish bestsellers list ending July 22, there were five thrillers or crime-related novels among the fiction top ten, three penned by women. The current swathe of female crime writers is also "because we were silenced for so long", says Nugent, who's in the very early stages of writing her sixth book. "Women were silenced for so long that our voices weren't heard, that our books weren't reviewed, that we didn't merit prize nominations. And that's completely turned on its head now."

Liz Nugent and Una Mannion will be in conversation with Declan Burke at the Kilkenny Arts Festival on Friday. Tickets from €16/14 from kilkennyarts.ie.