EOIN BUTLERtalks to novelist, sailor and muralist Robert Fannin.
What inspired you to begin writing your novel 'Shooting The Moon'?Twelve years ago, when my wife became pregnant, I decided to write something for my child to read someday. I wanted to describe what happened to me when, as a young man, fuelled by arrogance, and completely ignorant of the world, I went out and created havoc for myself and other people. The book is about moving from one social tribe to another, and how I handled, or mishandled, that experience.
What were those tribes?My background was middle-class suburban Dublin. But after being expelled from school at 15, I became a fisherman in Howth. The sea was sometimes a refuge for men who couldn't make it ashore. Well, to be fair, there were families of career fishermen: the Moores and the McLaughlins. But, for the most part, the deck would be filled with men who'd had colourful pasts. Some would have been in prison or have walked out on their wives and families.
What kind of experience was that for a teenager?There was a lot of violence. But to my mind, there was also integrity. From what I'd experienced of the middle class world – with teachers and parents – there was a great deal of hypocrisy. But here there were rules. One of those rules was that you never brought the law down to the fishing community. And the police seemed happy enough with that arrangement.
You were a fisherman for two years. What did you do next?After that I roamed a lot. In Amsterdam, there was some pretty hardcore drug use. It knocked me for six. Then one day, in about 1974, a sailboat came into Howth harbour and I asked if I could have a job as a deckhand. We sailed to the Mediterranean, down the coast of Africa and across to Barbados. I got off in Florida and hitchhiked around America. That lasted about a year-and-a-half. After all the troubles I'd had, it reaffirmed to me that life could be good.
In the late 1970s, you were a professional sailor.My job was delivering boats from A to B, and most of the trips were transatlantic. I started out as a crewman and worked my way up to captain. I'd say I crossed the Atlantic about 11 times.
You've also had a parallel career as a cartoonist and illustrator.Aside from sailing, my other source of income has been as a painter and decorator. Very mundane stuff, for the most part. But I've been lucky enough to have got a lot of work doing caricatures and murals. You do one kid's bedroom and then suddenly parents are on the phone saying they want their rooms done, too.
One of your murals replicates the roof of the Sistine Chapel, except that God is handing Adam a roll of toilet paper. That was in someone's bathroom, I assume?It's a funny story. I was in Rhode Island writing a play about Vincent Van Gogh. While I was there, the lead actor and I painted this old woman's house. She mentioned the idea for the mural and I said no problem, I could do it.
There was one element of Adam’s physique, though, in which she took a particular interest. She said, “Adam’s got this little dinky thing. I don’t want a dinky thing”. She pulled out a stack of Playgirl magazines and said, “I want something more like this”.
At 52, after finally finishing your novel, you enrolled in university. Would it be fair to describe you as a restless sort of character?Yes, I suppose I would. Whenever I slip into a routine, and find myself getting comfortable, I get a suffocating sense that I'm dying. Not that dying is a great fear of mine or anything. It's just that life is so big and so broad. what I'm scared of is falling into a rut and waking up to find that I'm 73 years old.
So whenever I’m afraid that’s in danger of happening, I throw a spanner in the works. I prefer hovering at the point of discomfort. It makes me feel alive.
Robert Fannin's novel, Shooting The Moon, is published by Hachette Books Ireland (€11.99)