Is Nuala O'Faolain about to become this year's Frank McCourt? No, she's not going to change sex or relocate in Limerick, but already they have one thing in common, both having written memoirs of growing up in less-than-model Irish Catholic families. Make that two things - Frank's Angela's Ashes and Nuala's Are You Somebody? have been huge popular successes in Ireland, where they have both topped the bestseller lists.
The difference, of course, is that Angela's Ashes has also been a commercial sensation abroad, especially in the United States, where it was first published to rave reviews and extraordinary sales. Nuala's book, on the other hand, came from an Irish publisher (New Island) and its success until now has been confined to this country.
All that is changing, though. Are You Somebody? was published a few weeks ago in the US by Holt & Co and is currently on the bestseller lists featured in the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle and other American papers throughout the Union.
In typical offhand fashion, Nuala describes this as a "terrific fluke" and seems more excited by the fact that she appeared on NBC's Good Morning America show on St Patrick's Day in the company of Frank McCourt, whom she thinks a lovely man. Darina Allen was also on the programme, making green soup for the occasion, and, all in all, according to Nuala, "we'd great fun."
She was in the US on a week-long coast-to-coast tour to publicise the book - "the most exhausting and most exhilarating week of my life," she says, after reciting a litany of such places she visited as Boston, Chicago, Iowa and San Francisco.
She confesses herself mystified by the book's commercial success in the US, though feels that it all began with a rave review in the New York Times from Zoe Heller, followed by reviews in other papers and magazines which were equally enthusiastic in their praise.
That wasn't the case when the book was published in Ireland: "I got only two reviews," she recalls, "one of which advised me to pull myself together" - a bit like telling Frank McCourt to grow up and put all that silly Limerick stuff behind him. However, a memorably moving Late Late Show appearance ensured that Nuala's book became an overnight bestseller.
So will international acclaim spoil her? Somehow I doubt it. Anyway, she has no immediate intention of moving back to Dublin from the North, about which she is writing so well for this paper. It's far too interesting up there these days. But what about when Hollywood comes calling, declaring they want Meryl Streep to play her in the movie of the book and would that be all right? To be honest, I forgot to ask her, though she'd probably reply: why not Madonna while they're at it?
Imaginatively, and perhaps physically too, many of us have travelled around Ireland in the company of William Thackeray, Robert Praeger, H.V. Morton, Frank O'Connor, Richard Hayward, Peter Somerville Large, Eric Newby and other notable writers who have graced us with their insights into our green and pleasant land.
Now Ebury Press are asking us to consider making the journey with Tony Hawks, an English comedian familiar to those who watch such challenging shows as Have I Got News For You and They Think It's All Over.
To be honest, Mr Hawks seems a pleasant enough cove, and hence I have no wish to ridicule him, but his book (published this week) would certainly take some beating if one were seeking to find the most redundant tome ever written about Ireland - and no, I `m not forgetting Leon Uris's Trinity or the screenplay to Far and Away.
Mr Hawks's title says it all. Round Ireland with a Fridge, it's called and, yes, it's about a trip he made around Ireland accompanied by a fridge. This, we are told, was the result of a drunken bet with an Irish friend in London, and, as ideas go, it's about as duff as anyone could think of.
Nor, I'm afraid, is the content any better, consisting mainly of people on the road or in shops or pubs asking him "Is that a fridge you've got there?" and the author replying: "Yes, it is", and the conversation proceeding from that point. In between are observations about places and people he came across, though not so you'd notice.
It all runs to 247 pages, but after skimming through the first eighty and asking myself a hundred times "Why am I reading this?" I copped myself on. What next - Round Ireland with Red Hair by Chris Evans?
I see that sales of Whitman's Leaves of Grass have rocketed since it was revealed that Bill Clinton gave a copy of it to Monica Lewinsky, and that Nicholson Baker's phone-sex novel, Vox, is all the rage again after Kenneth Starr discovered it was one of Monica's favourite books.
But other writers are unlikely to profit as much from their unwitting association with celebrity. Sales of Nostromo or Lord Jim will hardly benefit from the disclosure that the Unabomber is a Conrad devotee, while admirers of Cormac McCarthy may well feel positively alarmed that their literary passion is shared by O.J. Simpson.
Just thought you'd like to know - the life of Graham Greene, that chronicler of dour disenchantment, is being turned into a musical (Brighton Rocks would be a good title), and its producers are hoping Daniel Day-Lewis will play the man himself.
Oh, and Faber are about to publish Windward Heights, written by Maryse Conde ("the Caribbean's leading female writer," according to Faber), which transposes Emily Bronte's much-loved novel of nearly the same name to Cuba and features a dreadlocked Heathcliff and a Cathy who "wiggles her bonda and dances the gwo-ka every evening."