There was so much anti-Irish sentiment not just from other kids at the school I went to in Britain, but also the teachers themselves. I remember very clearly a lot of the things people said to me and my sisters. And of course those sentiments go back a long way. When my dad visited London in the 50s and was looking for somewhere to stay, there were signs outside boarding houses that said "No blacks, no Irish."
Maggie O'FarrellWhat are you supposed to do with all the love you have for somebody if that person is no longer there? What happens to all that leftover love? Do you suppress it? Do you ignore it? Are you supposed to give it to someone else?
Maggie O'FarrellWhen I worked at The Independent newspaper, I had colleagues who would laugh and say that whenever they picked up the phone to my dad and heard his accent, they thought they were about to hear a five-minute warning to get out the building. People in Britain have always thought it acceptable to make racist remarks about the Irish. The prejudice underlying that supposed joke was everywhere.
Maggie O'FarrellI think all families have these secrets, and it's sometimes the strangest things that bring them out. That was part of my interest in the heatwave, in heat as a catalyst for uncovering truths. I was reading Alice in Wonderland to one of my kids recently, and I remembered that it starts on a really hot day. Alice falls asleep because of the heat; the whole story is predicated on falling into a heat-fueled dream.
Maggie O'FarrellI have two sisters, and I think siblings are always going to be irresistible for novelists. They have been throughout time and they'll continue to be.
Maggie O'FarrellYou learn so much with each book, but it's what you teach yourself by writing your own books and by reading good books written by other people - that's the key. You don't want to worry too much about other people's responses to your work, not during the writing and not after. You just need to read and write, and keep going.
Maggie O'Farrell