Q&A with Niall Williams

  

 

Niall Williams is the author of the new book O Now!. His many other books include the novel This Is Happiness. He is also a playwright, and he lives in County Clare, Ireland. 

 

Q: You’ve said your new book was inspired by a request from a BBC producer. Can you say more about that, and about what drew you back to writing about the world of Faha?

 

A: During the writing of This is Happiness I realized that I didn't want to leave the parish of Faha. So I more or less made up my mind at that stage that all future novels would be set there. The world of that novel was rich with possibilities and seemed to offer limitless stories.

 

No writer likes to say goodbye to a character, especially a beloved one, and Ganga was that for me. So, after the death of his wife, Doady, in Time of the Child, for O Now I wanted to say a proper goodbye to him. The opportunity came when a radio producer at BBC Northern Ireland asked me if I could write a story in five episodes to be broadcast over five nights at Halloween. 

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between your characters Ganga and Bat?

 

A: They have a habit of companionship. They live close to each other, see each other out on the land, in the roads of the parish, and through the routine of Bat's nighttime visits.

 

In the west of Ireland there is a tradition known in the Irish language as the cuaird; this is an informal and mostly unannounced visit to a neighbour. You come in for the tea and the talk. Company is a valued currency in all remote country places, and that is the grounding of their relationship. 

 

Q: The writer Ann Patchett has said, “I am utterly obsessed with Niall Williams.” What do you think of that comment?

 

A: Ann is a kind of patron saint of writers. After I stop blushing, I bow and say thank you. 

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: In This is Happiness Ganga says “O Now!” several times. It is his catchphrase, and as such catches inside it all of his opinions, which are never expanded upon.

 

In the novel, it becomes for me a kind of wisdom, that he lives in the now, the now of the land and the animals and the weather and the company he is in at that moment and lets the rest take care of itself.  

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Having finished the screenplay for This is Happiness, I am writing the next Faha novel. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: That I am enormously grateful to all the readers who have made Faha their fictional home. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Niall Williams.