Just before leaving Ireland I published a book, The Family Business, which has upset my family and friends. These few lines on the Island Voices page are my attempt to explain.
Some years ago I wrote an account of my boyhood, Before The Wax Hardened. To cut off all escapes and force myself to be truthful - always a problem for me - I decided to use my real name, which in turn meant I had to use my immediate family's real names. I drew the line at using relatives' and friends' names - I changed those. By the time I wrote the book several of the characters were dead; and even those who were offended accepted that boyhood is a remote world.
The Family Business, a sequel to that book, was about my twenties - the wandering decade between leaving home and settling down , the friends I had, the humiliations. That was the right hand. The left hand accompaniment dramatised the slow, inevitable growing apart of my family, which led inevitably to the closing down of my father's business.
Why do families grow apart ? For the same reason that a child leaves its parents and cleaves to another and they in turn become one flesh. But 1,it is rare if not impossible that this process is painless. In the same way we make friends when young - and never have such friends again - but with age we slowly lose that simple intensity.
So my book was written with regret - at the breakup of my family, its business , the intensity of youth's friendships. I'm Irish: describing great failure comes naturally; and with that comes Irish bitterness.
Yet it wasn't till the book was published that - conveniently, I suppose - it hit me what I had done: mentioned my dearly loved parents, brothers and sister and their spouses by name; my wife too and her family; coldly described friends, to make a point or turn the story. No use to say that my brothers or sister or their spouses are dearly loved, that I changed my friends' names. They are all equally hurt .
I sent a copy to a friend , and yesterday received from him a two word telegram - "Horrible masterpiece."
My wife 's comment hurt me more . She said "Kind hearts are more than coronets" - meaning that even if the book is good, it is merely a coronet and I have hurt hearts in gaining it.
So now I have a book which took me five years to write, but which upsets me so much I can't bear to look at it.
Mea culpa.
I'd be glad to hear comments from anyone who reads the book.

Extract from Minding (work in progress)
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