What was the origin of Service, your new novel?
A mix of things, like most books. I was reading a lot about MeToo in the media, and it made me think about the service industry. The stressful environment, poor pay and conditions, the ingrained sense of hierarchy, the quick, often transient nature of the work, the lack of proper HR procedures in some settings, how easy it is for shady things to happen, depending on who’s in charge.
The world of the restaurant is brilliantly detailed. Have you worked in service yourself?
I worked for many summers during college and my 20s as a waitress, largely in the US. I know the world – the highs and lows, the fast pace. How your colleagues become like family. There’s a great intensity to that world, it’s very sensual and colourful, which I think makes for entertaining fiction.
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Why did you decide to set the book during the Celtic Tiger?
I like layers in my writing, public and private realities that resonate with each other. The boom was a time of great excess, opportunity, greed, excitement, danger. It wasn’t a very safe place to do business. It seemed to me to be the perfect backdrop for a story about the abuse of power.
Dinner Party was told from the perspective of one narrator, Kate Gleeson, whereas this new novel is told from multiple viewpoints. Why did you decide to do that?
I’m drawn to ambiguity, grey areas in fiction. To get some level of nuance or understanding on the difficult subject matter of the book, it needed to be from multiple perspectives – in this instance a young waitress, a Michelin-starred chef and his long-suffering wife.
Where do you think we’re at with #MeToo?
There’s been progress. More awareness of power dynamics and how power can be abused, more platforms for women to speak out, a real and necessary shift in the way we as a society are willing to listen to victims of sexual abuse. The law is slower to change. A lot more needs to be done to make the reporting of sexual crimes easier for victims.
Has being a reviewer influenced your writing?
I got very interested in structure a few years ago, and I think that’s from reading so many books for review over the last 10 years. How structure can work not just to outline the events of a book but to convey meaning in a subtle way which may not be obvious to the reader.
What dishes did you prep that never left the kitchen, ie what plot lines or characters did you experiment with and then discard and why?
I had a whole section, just over 20,000 words, on [the chef] Daniel Costello as a child and teenager. Initially it killed me to cut it but it wasn’t relevant to the story. And it did really help inform his adult voice in later drafts.
What are you working on now?
A short story for the Dublin Review. I’m also writing a play, a full-length version of a 10-minute play that won a prize in the Short+Sweet Festival Dublin a few years ago.
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?
The Globe in Stratford-upon-Avon.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
Iguazú Falls in Brazil; closer to home, Clahane in Liscannor is pretty spectacular.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
I’ve always loved Dickens’s “make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait”.
Who do you admire the most in Irish public life?
Noeline Blackwell has done phenomenal work on behalf of victims of sexual abuse in her role as head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.
You’re supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
All laws in any country across the world that prevent young girls and women from getting an education.
Which current book, film, TV show and podcast would you recommend?
My two favourite books this year have been Darragh McKeon’s upcoming novel Remembrance Sunday and Michael Magee’s Close to Home. I’m enjoying Beef on Netflix – an obvious scenario but in a way that feels very new. The Dublin Review podcast hosted by Aingeala Flannery, particularly two recent episodes with Kevin Barry reading his essay on internet culture, The Skin of Anxiety, and Dominique Cleary’s depiction of the binds of early motherhood.
Your most treasured book/possession?
Two rare editions of Irish verse and poetry, a wedding present from a very close family friend who sadly died shortly before the wedding.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Henrietta McKervey, Anne Enright, Chekhov, Nora Ephron, Shakespeare, John Kennedy Toole.
What is your favourite quotation?
So many, too many. One is from Edna O’Brien short story My Two Mothers: “Life, she maintained, was one big battle, because no matter who wins nobody does.”
Who is your favourite fictional character?
I’ve always had a soft spot for Scobie in Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter.
A book to make me laugh?
Gwendoline Riley’s My Phantoms, if you have a dark sense of humour.
A book that might move me to tears?
The ending of Claire Keegan’s Foster gets me every time. In the same vein, the second-last line of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn is a masterclass in catharsis.
Sarah Gilmartin’s new novel Service is out now from Pushkin Press
