Louise Kennedy
The Waterstones Podcast
In this episode of The Waterstones Podcast, author Louise Kennedy discusses her second novel, Stations. The conversation delves into the cha
Key takeaways
- The character Roisin originated in Kennedy's short story collection, 'The End of the World is a cul-de-sac'.
- The novel spans three distinct eras: 1982-83 in Ireland, 1984-89 in London, and 2007.
Main topics
- Character creation and development
- 1980s Irish diaspora to London
Notable quotes
I realized I was on page 20. And I was like, oh, my God, it's going to go so horribly wrong because there's all these other pages to go.
Conclusion
A thoughtful exploration of how personal history and social upheaval s
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Louise, welcome to Waterstones. Thank Speaker 2 (0:01) you very much for having me. I should Speaker 1 (0:03) say welcome back, really, because... Speaker 2 (0:04) Yes, that's all right, yeah. Speaker 1 (0:06) As a member of the inaugural Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize shortlist, we have the joy now of... second novels appearing which is what we have here in stations i'm going to start off immediately by saying that i absolutely love this book and i've already had several conversations with other people who have picked up this book and loved it so thank you well thank Speaker 2 (0:27) you very much that's um that's lovely to hear and also a great relief now Speaker 1 (0:31) comes the hard bit which is you you broke my heart again and uh that i can't let go i don't know i want to know why you do this to your readers but we'll start off first of all with the characters um readers are going to meet roshin and red and they're going to be a whole host of characters but those are the two that we'll focus on because i'm sure that for most people those will be the two that they're taking into their hearts Speaker 2 (0:53) tell Speaker 1 (0:54) me a bit about creating these two characters where did you begin and how did they develop so Speaker 2 (1:00) i think i had roshin first and i actually had her already because in my short story collection, The End of the World is a cul-de-sac. The shortest story in the collection is called Belladonna and it features Roisin maybe a year or a year and a half earlier. And she is a recent blow into a not very exciting town in the Irish Midlands. She's fighting with her mother, she's fighting with everybody at school, she's terribly unpopular and in that story she becomes kind of obsessed with this kind of cookie couple who live across the way. And that story maybe is about her not really understanding what she's dealing with and then maybe she sort of has a hand in... things that begin to happen for that couple that aren't really very good but she doesn't do it on purpose. So Roisin, I kind of love Roisin because I think her voice is very much, it was very much the voice that I had at that age because like her, you know my family had left the north of Ireland in the late 70s when I was 12 and moved to I don't think, you know, it would be unfair to say a fairly shitty little town in the Irish Midlands. And like her, everybody hated me in school. And she's not really likeable. She's, you know... I mean, I don't think she's despicable, but I think because Cushla in Trespasses, my first novel, she did some things that maybe people wouldn't agree with. But she's pretty likeable and she's what people might consider to be a good person. Not that Roisin's a bad person, but I just thought it might be... I felt I had unfinished business with Roisin, it might be a bit of a crack to resurrect her and to give her a friend and see how she got on with that. So Red is her friend. Roisin is still, when Stations opens in 1982, Roisin is still struggling at school. And I guess to maybe make all of that a little easier, her main tormentor is a girl called Tina. And Tina's like the girl that all the boys fancy. And Tina's father doesn't approve of Tina's boyfriend, who's called Red. And he is the sort of fella I think you'd have lurking around the place in a lot of schools. I think lots of girls would remember fellas like this, where he has a reputation for being trouble and he's beautiful and a bit dangerous or something. And Roisin agrees to carry a letter to Red. But they very quickly realise that they probably have more in common than Red does with Tina. And yeah, so that's where the story starts and that's where they came out of. Speaker 1 (3:55) You do that thing where I was reading the book and I realised as I was reading the opening pages that one of my favourite things in... fiction is when two characters meet and they just kind of click. There's something about the way that they banter with each other that means that they're meant to be friends. And I had exactly that feeling. And I remember putting the book down and going, oh, this is just great. And I realised I was on page 20. And I was like, oh, my God, it's going to go so horribly wrong because there's all these other pages to go. And that, of course, is kind of what happens with Red and Rishi. And there's a lot of stories still to come. When you were setting out to tell the story, I suppose, did you know at the outset? where it was heading for the two of them or were you going to sort of put them through some things and see what happened? Speaker 2 (4:37) I think it was maybe a bit of both. So I knew that Red had a story. Red wasn't quite what he seemed and I knew that Roisin being Roisin and also maybe because all young people or you know as you're entering the adult world there are things you just don't really understand I think there are questions you don't ask certainly when I was a teenager my head was very far up my backside and I didn't really think about other people very much in the way that I should have and I think maybe that you know at that age because that where maybe we can only see people in relation to ourselves and how they are with us and what they're giving us and what we want from them or something I didn't know exactly how it was going to pan out I didn't know the ending until like I wrote a different different ending. I think that people at my publisher read a different ending. But when I really thought about where I brought the book to, because it does cover a very big temporal frame, especially compared with Trespasses, where pretty much everything happens over a period of six months. There are three parts. So it's kind of 1982, 83 at home in Ireland. Then they all... you know, those characters find themselves in London and it's maybe from 1984 until about 1989 in London and then it jumps forward to 2007 which is the year that they all turn 40, I suppose. So I didn't, I wasn't sure how to end it. So the ending did change very close to the, you know, to the end of my process with it. It Speaker 1 (6:16) seems almost as though Red knows. where the story's going because there's a bit right near the beginning where they're talking about their friendship and she can see that he's upset at one point and she says I'll be your friend forever as well and he says you won't but that's okay and I wondered I suppose when you're writing that that line what is it that Red knows I suppose at that stage is it to do with him what he knows about himself or is it to do with their friendship or is it to