Q&A with Máirín Stronge

For our interview with Máirín Stronge, we have been truly treated! Rachel Walshe, one of our fiction editors, was able to do a video call with Stronge to discuss their story “The Other Liv.” This has given us a wonderful, in depth, transcript of a spoken interview. It is not often that schedules align and we are able to do this, so it is especially exciting when we can, and interview questions organically develop through conversation with the author themself. Read on for a truly fantastic discussion of Stronge’s writing and its influences!

Edited for the purposes of print

Irish Immigrants in London, is this something that you are familiar with? Where did the genesis of the story come from? 

Emigration has been a big part of my family’s story, many leaving, some returning. My parents were from either side of a small town in Mayo, they met in a dancehall in London and married. They had four children there, (I was one of them), and then they came back and had a fifth child. So emigration is in my bones, a kind of intuitive knowledge, handed down through lived experience and the stories of my mother. But my whole life isn’t involved with living in the past. The Other Liv isn’t solely about emigration, although that is part of Liv’s story. It’s set in 1978, a time when people had to leave Ireland for work, unlike subsequent years when leaving became more of a choice. In the description of the Mail Train leaving Euston, I was trying to convey a sense of the longing most emigrants had at that time for connection, with home, and with people who had an innate knowledge of who they were, so that for that short interlude between stepping onto the train and hearing the whistle blow, they return to being part of ‘us’, rather than ‘other.’ In that sense, they were getting to go home, even if it was only as far as Euston. All of that said, the story begins and ends with Liv, it’s fundamentally about her. 

That really came across. I know you’ve said it’s not really meant to be an immigrant story but that section, that longing did come across and I did wonder if that part of Liv’s struggle was this feeling of displacement. The minute she gets to England, her hair gets caught and it’s like it’s literally chewing her up in a way.

Liv was born in Lancashire and is brought to Ireland as a child by her grieving mother, so from the start she has a complexity in terms of knowing who she is, where she’s from. She’s a displaced person all the way through, someone who, after a near death experience, suffers Post Traumatic Stress. When she meets Ravi, he gives her solace and security; she’s safe with him. The nightmares aren’t as bad. And then her North Star, Andrew, the person she trusts most, dies, and his death triggers a resurgence of symptoms, only more severe, as she begins actively seeking out reckless and dangerous situations. There’s a psychological shift, primarily because of the accident, exacerbated by her brother’s death. 

Small things can happen (well, almost dying wasn’t a small thing) but small things can happen in life that trigger a change while people closest are unaware. Because she survived, Liv would have been considered fortunate, but while she looks the same on the outside, inside she’s traumatised, complicated by the fact that her hair, her most valued asset, her looks, caused the accident. 

The image I had was Veronica Lake.

Who’s Veronica Lake, tell me more. 

She was a Hollywood actress in the 1940’s who was known specifically for her hair, and during World War II she was part of a campaign to encourage women working in factories to put their hair up because of accidents like Liv’s. The idea was “Even she’s putting the glamour away during war time.” Now you’ve already said it’s not that you live in the past... 

No (laughter). 

Well I find personally when I’m thinking about the past, I’m actually thinking about the present. 

It influences, doesn't it? 

It’s a constant narrative but for you as a writer, is this emblematic of the type of writing that you do? 

If you’re asking do I write about a certain group of people or do I write about a certain place? I definitely write about Irish people because that’s what I am. I think we bring our influences forward, whether intentionally, or not and my writing probably reflects people and places that I have a sense of, or a connection with. I don’t spend time thinking about deliberately placing symbols to represent ideas or things into my writing, but somehow, mostly, they appear. Which is an instinct, I guess, rather than a planned strategy. Stories begin usually with just a few lines, something someone says or discovering a character in a place that once I describe, I then leave there to settle in, while my unconscious mind begins believing in them. 

Well I feel like every writer there’s a certain topic, even when you don’t mean to write about it, you look back and go, “oh yeah I was just writing about X”. And it’s not a limitation, there’s just an artistic preoccupation of something that just speaks to you. 

I get you. I was looking at the documentary the other night on Edna O’Brien. Did you see it? 

Yes, yes. 

I only saw part of it, but I’ve taped it. Her books, writing about Bosnia and the war there, she was so engaged in the world, wasn’t she? And from what she said, I had the impression she was distanced from her own life in different ways. She talked about the effect of trauma on her life and how it never left her. She was tempted by the bad boy, rather than opting for the good. There was a sense of her wonderful ability to look over the fence and see all the things that needed to change. Outside. But she perhaps couldn’t do it inside.  

And in terms of the Irish Literary Canon, she’s both such a staple but also so quickly forgotten in terms of my generation (millennials). After watching the documentary, I immediately went out to get “Country Girls”. 

And what did you think of it? 

I loved it. It was a microcosm into an Ireland that was probably incredibly difficult and idealised but there was a freedom in the natural aspects of it. Her prose is so simple. There’s no floridness to it. 

I love that whole idea. I remember somebody said to me, some years ago when I was doing exams, “You’ve got it all in your head, just spit it out.” And when I started writing I said “I’m just going to let it out on the page.” I don’t like big words, I just let it be what it is really, without dressing it up too much, if I can. Sometimes it’s easier said than done, and we all get carried away, don’t we? But the more vested you are in the story or the protagonist, the closer you are to what you’re writing, and the need for the elaborate falls away. 

Yes, that's very true. You’re not dressing it up. You’re not trying to “earn” the sentence. 

You’re not distancing it from yourself. If it’s true, I don’t think you need to distance it. 

Yes! But when I was reading the Other Liv, the scope of it really stuck out to me and you were talking about Andrew as the north star. I would have loved even more of him. And not to set you another goal, but I don’t know if it’s something you would consider expanding? 

I hadn’t thought of it until you said it but I agree with you, I think Andrew has a lot to say. He was a mystery man and I think addicted to danger more so than Liv, and for longer. But why? There’s a distance between them, they love each other yet he kind of kept her at a distance, although he sees her more clearly than she views him. His compulsion to scale the heights, seek out danger, and then his final fall, something about himself he hides from Liv, just as she hides her anonymous sexual encounters. Andy may be dead, but yes, I suspect he may have more to say. And I think Ravi is interesting, too. There’s no certainty his and Liv’s relationship will survive, Ravi knows she’s been unfaithful and it takes a special kind of person to be able to forgive, even knowing what she’s been going through. It’s incredible how much you can get tangled up with these people. I’m in the process of finishing my third novel, ‘That Which is Lost,’ contemporary fiction with a twist of cosy mystery and I hope to start sending out to Agents & Publishers within the next month or so and after that, perhaps I’ll come back to Liv. 

I was thinking there when you said about your three novels, which by the way, congratulations, amazing to be able to say you’ve got three of them. 

It’s great to be able to say I’ve written ‘The end’ on all three! There have been delays and I’m easily diverted. For example, after reading a compilation of short stories by a group of Canadian writers which took a common location, an apartment block, I suggested something similar to the AdNibs Collective, a group of us from the MA at UL. Our take was that each writer would select a decade starting with the 1960’s, the location would be the North West of Ireland, with one common character threaded through each story. Six of us were involved and it ended up coming out as “The Decades” which is here [she shows Rachel a copy].

Oh my god, that’s great!

It was published by 451 Editions in April this year. It took up some time during which I put the novel to one side, but I’m at the editing stages now so that’s real progress! 

Which decade were you out of interest? 

I did the 70’s. 

Ok, I can see the link. 

You see, I’m back in the 70’s again! I know, it’s bad. 

No it’s not bad, clearly just fresh in your mind. 

It’s was easier for me to go with that period, I suppose, although each of us would have been comfortable with any of the decades. We wanted to tie each story back into something that was going on [historically], to make it relevant, so we all gave a little nudge to whatever was going on at the time without being heavy handed about it. We think. We hope. 

What a great resource actually, did you show this story to your writers group when you were first drafting it? 

Oh god, yeah, I did. We meet up every month and each of us take turns submitting whatever we’re working on. It’s a brilliant opportunity to get constructive criticism.   

I feel like you’ve answered my questions and more, but I know I focused in more on the Immigration aspect. 

And I see why you would do that because it is a big part of it, because of where the story is based, where they’re situated. That’s the location of their lives really, isn’t it? 

I might have been reading it in… Immigration at the moment is such a big topic and obviously your story isn’t really in conversation with that but there was a point in history where that was us and that sense of displacement in Liv, I just found it so moving. And again, this isn’t in your story but “No blacks, No dogs, No Irish”. And I wondered how much…

That played into it? I don’t think it did, to be honest with you. I think she’s displaced but she’s psychologically displaced. 

Yes, definitely. And to come back to that scene in the train, I did read it as that as hopeful. The danger she was seeking, it wasn’t just danger to her, it was a danger to her family and that maybe she would start to pull away. Maybe there was another way for her. 

I think you’re right. When she sees the waiter on the train, his eyes are Andy’s eyes, and she’s finally brought up short. Realises she’s on the point of repeating his story, leaving without saying goodbye, without giving anyone a chance to save her. Her thinking aligns in a coalescence of the disparate versions of herself. She now understands what Andy meant about being pieces of a jigsaw and that her jigsaw is her family with Ravi. In rushing back to the compartment, she’s trying to relocate her family, which could also be interpreted as a return home. [Before], she’s two people in one, the old Liv, critically conscious of the damage she’s causing, and the other Liv, with an irrational compulsion to do what she shouldn’t. I think the hope would be that Liv can find herself. But life is never that simple, is it? 

It felt like in that moment there was a shift for her, which maybe isn’t towards, “And now we’ll be a happy family”, but something had shifted for her in that recognition. 

And I don’t know what will happen to them. And I don’t know what will happen to her. 

Isn’t it great that you can get that sense of closure without the knowledge of where that character goes? 

I used to like stories that had a happy ending and to be honest I still do, even though I’m not a child anymore. But it's always more interesting to finish a story and think, “Well what’s going to happen, where does she go from here?” and for the possibilities to be left in the reader's mind, rather than just my head. That to me is more fascinating. And I love a story where I’m not really sure what's intended here or where it's going, and the reason I’m thinking like that is because I’m invested, which is brilliant. That’s the reason we tend to live those stories afterwards, isn’t it? 

Lot’s of other Liv’s happening. 

Well, it’s like Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice and Mrs. Bennett and all the girls. Everyone has been trying to write the follow on. 

We want our favourites to live happy lives. 

I think it’s more than that, I think we want to stay in their world! I think we don’t want to give them up, we want to stay there. And wallow.