By The Book: Sinéad Nolan Swaps Psychotherapy For Thriller Writing

Sinéad Nolan grew up climbing trees and playing in the spooky forests in Dublin. Those youthful days have been embedded in her mind.

Her formative years inspired her debut novel, The Counting Game, which is set in 1995 Ireland, where a terrifying monster haunts the forest. But is it a horrible mythical beast or something even more scary and closer to reality?

With a four-month-old at home, her beloved cats, she has added another love to her brood. Mixing thriller and literary fiction, her debut novel is set to capture the hearts and minds of the nation.

We sat down with Sinéad…

 

Congratulations on your debut novel! Tell us a bit about The Counting Game.

It’s set in Drumsuin, a made-up place, in 1995. A 13-year-old girl goes missing, Saoirse, and her brother Jack who is nine is the last person to have seen her and he is quite traumatised by the death of his mother the year before. It’s a kind of secretive community, so he won’t really talk to anybody about what he saw and what happened. The mythology of the forest is that the creature sort of takes people, and girls have gone missing before. So he believes the creature took her. They bring in this psychotherapist, Freya. She’s English but she’s living in Dublin, and she has to try and get it out of Jack what happened. Then there’s a kind of a few main characters. Garda Morris who is on the case and their older sister Kate, who’s looking after them since their mother died. She’s quite troubled; she’s got issues with eating and substance abuse. The home is ruptured, and in the community, there’s a lot of trauma. They had the Magdalene Homes there previously in the forest. So, there’s trauma in the community and trauma in the home, and that’s where a lot of it comes from this mythology.

Where do you get the inspiration for your books?

Probably mixtures of things in my own life. I think a lot of you always goes into the writing. I was the same age as Jack in 1995, so maybe that’s part of it. I spent a lot of time climbing in forests as a child. I do think that authors also work through their intergenerational trauma or through their experience of Ireland through writing sometimes. There are a few bits of that in there.

Are you nervous about putting your debut novel out into the world?

Yeah, I’m really nervous. You get a few reviews and you’re like, “Oh my God,” and if you get a mixed review, you do feel a bit subdued for the rest of that day. Then you have to think it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Everybody likes different things so I hope that some people will really enjoy it. I’m really excited for some people to discover it and think, “Oh this is my kind of book, I really enjoyed that”.

Do you read reviews?

Oh, I shouldn’t but I have done so far. I probably have to stop doing that…I mean in one way I think it’s good to get feedback. I’ve always been a big advocate of feedback when you’re writing. But then on the other hand, you can’t please everybody and if you’re trying to please everybody, you’ll lose your own abilities. It’s hard going out there with something you’ve been working on for five years.

 

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What is the first thing you do when you sit down to write?

Put on white noise because I can’t have any distractions, not even a noise of someone chewing or someone on the train might be on the phone or I might even hear my baby crying. My husband is looking after her! I have to put on the white noise just to block out everything so that I go deep into that kind of world.

What is a childhood book that you still think about to this day?

There’s a few. I was such a reader when I was a kid so I was obsessed with Point Horror, but the book that really stood out to me was one called Rosie’s Quest and I can’t remember the name of the author. It was a red book and I read it about 10 times and it was about a girl who went back to the 1940s in Ireland and swapped with her mother, but she literally experienced the whole world back then in Ireland. Then there was Marita Conlon-McKenna, Under The Hawthorn Tree, Wildflower Girl- those three books were amazing.

Who are three authors that inspire you?

It’s a bit cringe but Sylvia Plath was just…when I was in university studying creative writing at 18, I was just absolutely in awe of her. I read everything. I love the way she uses language and Lionel Shriver and then Kazuo Ishiguro. But then more recently I’ve loved Andrea Mara and Kia Abdullah just for their amazing plotting.

Do you have a favourite character that you’ve written?

Yeah, it’s definitely Jack – the main character Jack.

Is there a book that you wish you could erase from your memory and reread for the first time?

There’s quite a few, and then I feel jealous of other people reading them. It would just be The Bell Jar, or a recent book, probably The Only Truth by Kia Abdulla, and it was just so good. I wanted to go back and read it again and the twists and the turns!

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

My mum used to always say people will try and take your spark, so don’t let them. Also, in terms of writing advice, it would be that rewriting is good writing. So you need to just use bum glue and sit down. People will say I want to write a book, but then they don’t actually put any time into it. It kind of annoys me because it’s a hard work thing. You have to actually sit down and you have to put aside Saturdays where you might go out with your friends. Then you also have to give it to people and let them give you their honest feedback and try and improve on it.

 

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If you had three books that you could go to a dinner party with, what would those three books be?

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro! Claire Keegan, Foster would be my second book because she’s fantastic I actually met her a few times, and her writing is just superb. The Other Hand by Chris Cleave. It’s absolutely amazing I can’t even describe it because if you try to describe the book, you ruin it. But there’s a big twist all the way, halfway through the book. It was the best book I read in my 20s.

What’s your most prized possession? It can be book-wise or otherwise.

I’m not materialistic, so it would be my baby at the moment, but that’s not possession, so I’ll probably go with my laptop. Because I can write on it. If I were in a fire, the only things I would save bar from my husband would be my baby, my cats and my laptop!

What is it like writing your second book? Especially before your first book comes out!

Trepidatious or nerve-racking because, I mean, I have a little bit of feedback from the first book so far, but I don’t know what people are going to think of this book. Also, book two, I’m actually now deciding I’m probably going set it in Dublin rather than London, so I have to rewrite what I’ve written so far in book two. It’s difficult because I don’t know whether people are going to like the Irish slant on it or whether they’re going to connect with the place. It’s all a bit daunting.

What is your favourite genre to read?

If I had to read, it is definitely mysteries/psychological thriller, my favourite to write is literary style, but that’s just because I enjoy words. I enjoy sentences. I enjoy writing without plotting and just writing, but of course you have to think about the reader. The reader wants to get their teeth into a mystery, and that’s something to read for and to find out. A page turner is always good for me. Like what’s going to happen I want to know what’s going to happen again.

The Counting Game by Sinéad Nolan is out now

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• By The Book