Life 16th July 2025 by Bronwyn O'Neill

By The Book: Aisling Rawle Takes On Reality TV In Debut Novel

Okay, this sounds amazing

Aisling Rawle Pic: City Headshots Dublin

Summer means the return of Love Island, a reality show that has gripped the minds of the nation. But it’s easier to imagine a darker side to the reality show. If just one thing went wrong…if society was just a bit darker… What could possibly happen?

That’s what 27-year-old Aisling Rawle asks in her debut novel, The Compound.

The Leitrim woman’s book has been named as Good Morning America’s book club pick for July. No small feat.

We sat down with Aisling to chat about the reality behind writing…

Congratulations on your debut novel! Tell me a bit about The Compound.

It’s a dark satire of reality television. We follow 19 contestants in a very isolated compound, like an oasis in the middle of the desert, and they have to compete in communal tasks, in order to make their lives livable and get things like food, furniture and tools. They also have the option of doing personal tasks which give much more superficial rewards like cute mugs and makeup and clothes.

You grew up with reality shows constantly on telly. Did you always knpw that you had to write about reality TV?

No, not even a little bit. I’m not a huge reality TV buff, I don’t really know as much about it as maybe I should. But there were years where everyone was going home at nine o’clock to watch Love Island. I do remember watching it, particularly during lockdown and thinking that they were such fascinating character studies and that they did hold up such an interesting mirror to society. Not just what we thought was good television or what sort of content can gather a whole nation at the same time every evening. But also, the gender politics and sexual politics are really fascinating to me. But to be honest with this it wasn’t that I wanted to write something about a reality television show, and more so that I kind of woke up one morning with this image in my head of two beautiful women waking up in this gorgeous house and then finding the bodies of other sort of beautiful women littered around. And I didn’t really know what it was. I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I was wondering as I wrote it, where are the boys, what’s going on here? But it definitely reminded me of Love Island, but I kind of thought it would be interesting instead of the arrival of the boys feeling quite sexy, that it would feel sort of sinister instead. So that was the sort of sort of germ that flowered over the course of the novel.

You’re so right about these shows being character studies and a reality show is the perfect place to set an pyshcological thriller like The Compound.

It’s very disorienting. You’re inhibitions are all off. I’m a sort of creature of habit, if one aspect of my day is thrown off, I’m a little bit out of sorts. So huge aspects like not knowing the time of day, not knowing what day or date it is, not being able to talk to anyone apart from the same dozen or so people every day, it’s no wonder you do sort of see extremes of human behaviour.

The Compound is your debut novel, are you nervous seeing it out in the world?

Yes and no. I wrote it two years ago, so it’s kind of strange talking to people and they’ve read this. I’m like, “How do you know about it? This is just in my head!” It’s lovely to be honest. It’s so nice to be able to hold a copy in my hands. I feel very lucky.

When you sit down to write, what is the first thing you do?

I always have a cup of tea. I like a nice sort of cosy vibe. So it’s very dim lighting and lot’s of candles. At the minute, the first part of writing is reading over what I’ve done the night before. I like to write at night, I might do a little bit of sort of planning in the afternoon. I think if you were to sit down at your laptop and go, “Now I need to write this pivotal scene”, it’s a little bit demanding. Whereas sitting down with a cup of tea and just doing some reading you sort of ease yourself in.

Do you have a childhood book that you still think about to this day?

That’s a lovely question. My one is funny in that I didn’t technically read it, but my mum read The Wind in the Willows to my sister, not me, and I would keep my bedroom door open and her bedroom door would be open. I would sort of listen from my room and I really loved it. Now I feel like maybe that awoke my love of ASMR because it was very soft and dreamy. I think the fact that it was a story not for me and it was a little bit distant, it felt more magical. When I anyone talks about that book or I’ll read a snippet of it, I feel so transported back to that sort of sense of
wonderment of I’m so loving this and I shouldn’t be hearing it, but that’s okay.

Do you have three authors that inspire you?

James Joyce is an all-time favourite. I was trying to explain Bloomsday recently to an American and they were very confused, but definitely James Joyce. I would say maybe Mary Renault. I’ve really, really been loving her work at the moment. It’s just so transporting and rich and detailed. Third author, I’m gonna say Kazuo Ishiguro. I think that he can’t set a foot wrong, he’s a genius of the truest sort.

You mentioned James Joyce and obviously Ireland has a history of just incredible authors. What is it like to join that cohort?

I don’t think anyone saying in the same category as James Joyce! I am so in awe of the amazing talent in Irish literary scene. I feel like ours in general is just incredible. It’s reaching such a wide audience, which is amazing. But I think one of the best things about the fact that the Irish literary scene, and the Irish art scene is so  impressive is that Irish people support Irish so much. They show up and they showed their appreciation with things like Bloomsday like it already is incredible that people from all around the country will show up in costume and reenact this one day from this book 100 years ago. It’s really amazing. I feel very, very grateful to be working with so many amazing Irish writers.  Irish female writers, I feel like at the minute are particularly thriving, which is so nice to see.

What’s a book that you’ll never forget?

I think my favourite book of all time is Jane Eyre. I’ll reread it pretty much every year. For the first time last week, I listened to the audiobook, it’s read by Thandiwe Newton and it is glorious. Oh my gosh, I can’t imagine anyone better to read this. I think that book to me is not just a comfort but a delight every single time I read it. Even though I have read it so many times, no matter how many times I return to it, I was still genuinely floored by the depth of passion and emotion in it. It’s Jane Eyre for me.


Do you have a favourite character you’ve written?

A favourite character that I’ve written. Oh gosh! Who in The Compound?! Even though Tom is so awful, I did enjoy writing him, I kind of was surprised by him at times, I suppose. I knew that he was going to be a sort of bad character, if that makes sense. But I wanted to find some aspect of him that was a little bit sympathetic. And even though I went into writing him knowing that I was going to dislike him, it was an interesting exercise for me to find a reason why people would gravitate to him. Tom was a little bit of a response to the  Andrew Tate adoration and ideation that goes on. And I was thinking, “Why are young men drawn to people like this?” And so, trying to be a little bit more objective and not be so much mired in my own sort of biases. So that was fun. I wouldn’t say I would like to meet Tom, but I enjoyed writing him.

What book universe would you like to jump into?

I’d love to jump into maybe like one of Homer’s worlds. I want to see Shining Achilles and Quick Witted Odysseus. I was immediately going to say the Iliad, but I would not want to be thrown smack in the middle of a terrible war. The Iliad if I can sit on the sidelines and sort of clap for people.

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

I think someone said that doubt can be crippling, but it can also helpfully reflective. You can get lost to self doubt. If you take the scum off the
surface of doubt rather than just sort of diving right, that is an opportunity for critical reflection rather than injuring you entirely.

Do you have a book that you would love to erase from your mind and read for the first time again?

That’s great! The Secret History by Donna Tartt. My goodness, what a book that was. I’d love to read that I’ve returned to it so many times. But that first feeling of “How did she manage this? How did she do this? This is so audacious! That is so thrilling.” Yeah, it’s everything I think you could want in the book. I’d love to return to that again for the first time.

What are your three dinner party books?

I think one book that you can talk about with so many people is Outline by Rachel Cusk. It’s a story of 10 conversations, which I think might be good for a dinner party. That the book is so gripping and so immersive, even though it’s the protagonist just chatting with people, and some of them are conversations of enormous depth and importance and some of them are very, very casual conversations. But I think that maybe centring a dinner party conversation and the fact that these conversations that we have matters so much would be a good one. Another dinner party one, I feel like something funny maybe. I feel like maybe Kevin Barry, I don’t know why they came to mind. Maybe Nightboat to Tanjeer. I feel like that dark humour is so great, that sort of barstool humour and yeah, you can do a lot with it, but also again, there’s so much depth to it and the third book. I think I’ll say for my third book, just because I read it recently, it was Purposes of Love by Mary Renault, and it was written in the 50s. But Renault’s conversations and discussions around sexuality and gender, particularly sexuality, were fascinating and I think if it were written in 2025, I would still be sort of floored by how original a take it was. But the fact that it was written in the 1950s is really
amazing.


What is your most prized possession?

I think probably my piano. It means a lot to me. Something that I talked about a lot in The Compound is trying to find meaning, more satisfaction from material possessions and how it’s ultimately fruitless. But I think the joy that I get from my piano will never fade. I think that will last long as I do.

Do you read reviews or do you stay away from them?

No, not at all. To be honest, I’m not online at all. So I’m happy to just keep busy I suppose my attitude is like that’s none of my business. The book writing part is my business and everything that comes after is for other people to deal with.

Do you have a favourite genre to read on? Is it the same as the one that you write?

I’ll genuinely read anything out of curiosity. I really will. There’s no genre I kind of won’t read. I always like to know what people are reading. I have terrible FOMO with books, I hate to be left out. So even if it’s technically not my cup of tea, I’ll still read it just to kind of join the conversation. But I think I probably mostly gravitate towards literary fiction. And yeah, I think that’s my number one genre.

Would you say The Compound is litfic?

I guess yeah, literary fiction and maybe psychological thriller. It’s hard to kind of categorise your own. I think maybe it’s hard to sort of make it fit into someone else’s market, if that makes sense. I feel that those things are for other people.

Is it tough to compartmentalise writing your second book and then talking about The Compound two years after you wrote it?

No, to be honest, what I’m working on now, I’ve been working on for almost four years. So this predates The Compound, The Compound interrupted the second book. So I feel like The Compound was sort of born from the compartmentalising. They feel different tonally and voice-wise. If I were writing another reality TV book, I think I would find this a little bit difficult. But I think it’s easier because the books are so different.

The Compound by Aisling Rawle is out now

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