Q&A with Paul Lenehan
“The Doctor Will See You Now” by Paul Lenehan is a stunning story with that struck us with its ability to balance surrealism and sincerity. Though a quick read, the narrative’s setting and characters feel vivid, familiar. Read below for an insightful Q&A between Lenehan and one of our editors, Ally Keegan.
The premise of a story set in a hospital ward and following a group of patients is really quite interesting – how did this idea surface for you?
I usually prefer to write from the imagination first, and then augment a story with hard facts (if required). This time it was the opposite – reality first, when I paid a visit to a relative in hospital, in a public ward. This was over a bank holiday weekend, and the situation was much the same as described in the story – anxious patients, hard-working staff, everyone hampered by absurd bureaucracy. The situation felt quite surreal, and I think that sense of the surreal gave me an indication of how to define and refine the tone of the story.
How did the different characters come to you and how did you develop each of them? Are there ones that came easier to you than others? I’m particularly fascinated by the stern woman who never speaks!
It's in the nature of public wards in public hospitals that all human life (including me) is there at any given time. The stern woman who doesn't speak (until she does), her dialogue probably gave rise to the character rather than the other way around. I'd found those four sentences of her short monologue in the book Logic: An Elementary Introduction, a book I'd dipped into once upon a time. (Like many writers, I dip into a lot of books.) The four sentences were given as examples of declarative sentences, and read like a found poem. I remember thinking they'd be four auspicious lines for an offbeat character to recite. So I made a (digital) note of them at the time, and managed, years later, to find a place for them in this story and for that character. I think too, with so much of a rumpus taking place in the ward, and with the exuberance of many of the other characters, it felt right to have one character detached by her silence from the mayhem.
Among my favourite parts of this story are the funny moments in the bleak setting – for example the attempted escape and the ending. When it comes to writing about darker topics, do you gravitate towards finding the potential humour?
I do try to find humour if I can, if I feel it's merited. It often depends on the perspective the story is being told from – if a specific character was telling this story, humour might not be appropriate for their world-view. It felt to me that humour in this story, even if bleak or black, would suit the overall surreal / absurd tone of the tale. It's a realistic story in the sense that the characters and situation are real; and if the plot events – the attempted escape, the possibility of a deceased patient left unattended in the ward – are at times unlikely, they're not impossible. I think those gaps, between the likely and the unlikely, and between the unlikely and the impossible, are good places for satire and irony to flourish.
