On The Town: Artist friends, flowers and applause hailed first-time novelist Noëlle Harrison when she arrived for the launch of her book, Beatrice, in a Dublin bookshop this week.
Some manuscripts "come at you and make your hair stand on end", said writer and playwright Dermot Bolger, in his speech welcoming the novel. Harrison has written "a stunning book", he added. "The secret of great writing is when nothing is happening and yet the reader is on the edge of the seat." Harrison, he continued, writes about "the sense that someone can be gone and still be a huge presence and that lives can be deferred and someone can be perpetually waiting. She captured that aching sense of waiting to be reunited with the past."
Artist Cora Cummins, from Carrigslaney, Co Carlow, whose show, Some Place, Somewhere, is currently running at the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, was at the launch to wish her friend luck, as was Valerie Earley, of the Sculptors' Society of Ireland, Sligo-based artist Alison Pilkington, and barrister Eileen Blishen JC, from Bennettsbridge, Co Kilkenny.
Playwright Alice Barry, who is will be performing her one-woman show, Pamella, in the Project as part of the upcoming Dublin Fringe Festival, was with her sister, Máiréad Wales.
Generally it was a busy week in the publishing world, with three other books being launched in the city. Two other first-time novelists who had well-attended parties were Sinéad Moriarty, whose book, The Baby Trail, was welcomed by Bill Cullen, of Toyota Ireland, and actor Claudia Carroll, whose first book, He Loves Me Not, He Loves Me, published by Bantam Press, was launched at the Mansion House.
Another début celebrated this week, in the non-fiction category, was Life Sentence, by journalist Catherine Cleary, published by O'Brien Press. It tells the story of 12 murders and is based on a series of interviews with bereaved families on how they survived the ordeal.