THEY don't tend to have theme tunes for book launches in Dublin but if they did a Cat Stevens number, Remember The Days Of The Old School Yard, would have been pretty appropriate on Wednesday night when Catherine Dunne's first novel In The Beginning was loosed upon the world in Dublin's Mother Redcaps Tavern. Launching the book was Roddy Doyle, who was a former teaching colleague of Dunne at Greendale Community School and joked that he is looking forward to seeing his books between the names of Dunne and Dostoyevsky on the bookshelves.
The Greendale reunion continued when Dunne met up with Passion Machine supremo Paul Mercier and RTE Off The Shelf producer Seamus Hosey, two other former inhabitants of the Greendale chalkface. Dunne's book has already been sold in Germany and there is also film interest. The Doyle connection continues as Dunne shares both an agent (John Sutton) and an editor (Dan Franklin who was present at the launch) with the Booker winner.
Katy Hayes is a woman of many parts - theatre director and playwright and now novelist with Curtains, which was launched in Waterstones of Dublin this week. Curtains is Hayes's first foray into the world of novel writing, but if she has any worries she might ask for a few tips from her friend J. P. Donleavy, who attended the launch.