Rebecca Ivory: ‘I don’t know if I’d be a writer if I were born into a different family’

How would you describe your debut short story collection, Free Therapy, in terms of themes, subject matter and style?

Free Therapy is about people who keep making the same mistakes, over and over, while trying their best to hide it. They are uncertain, and they lie and lack the ability to take responsibility. I hope that they show signs of some growth but they cannot change fundamentally. I like interiority, and I very much like writing about what a character thinks and feels, as well as their inability to express this and the consequences it has on their relationships. I write about minor interactions between people who don’t know each other all that well, and the lasting impression of these interactions. The characters also think a lot about their jobs, and the stress that money causes them. I do write about therapy, too, even if only indirectly, in some cases, because I’m very interested in how people feel and think.

Who are your biggest influences?

I’m very influenced by the voices of my mother, both my grandmothers, and aunties. There are a lot of women in my family, and I spent a lot of time listening to their conversations as a child. They are very funny, without trying, and I don’t know if I’d be a writer if I were born into a different family. I still love listening to the way people talk and tell stories. I spend a lot of time with my partner’s family and they are great talkers too, and long after being in their company, the words and turns of phrase stay in my mind and I feel I’ve found the thread of something I want to write about. In terms of writers, I was amazed to discover Lorrie Moore, Vivian Gornick, Richard Yates, Anne Tyler, Mary Gaitskill and Lucia Berlin. I immediately loved their psychological acuity and ability to capture a feeling that feels so elusive but familiar.

You joined a therapy group aged 19, many of whose members were significantly older than you. Why was that and did this experience feed into Free Therapy?

At this age, I was very insecure and constantly felt embarrassed about who I was and what I was doing with myself. Maybe most writers feel this, a chronic kind of self-consciousness. Most 19-year-olds do, I’m sure. I couldn’t afford private counselling and I didn’t know any other way to access it. It was helpful for me, because it normalised my experience and what I was thinking. And yes, I was the youngest person there; most of the others were in their thirties at the time. Sometimes, this made me feel a bit silly, but I also formed relationships with people who had a lot more life experience than I did. We were all incredibly different and linked by this one thing we did every week.

Tell me about the idea of ‘too much therapy’, the undeserved authority that might come with attending therapy as a young person who has very little life experience

I think there are some lessons you have to learn the hard way, and sometimes I wonder if starting therapy as an adolescent is a way to avoid valuable and formative life experience. I sometimes feel embarrassed thinking about myself as a 19-year-old in a support group giving feedback to people who had an awful lot more experience than I did. I think it was gracious of them to accept it, but I don’t see now how my input was of value. I worry that I may have appeared precocious, although that could just be my continued self-consciousness. Therapy is a great tool, and I still attend individual therapy today, but I think I believed it was a way of avoiding failure and mistakes as a young person, when really, I think it only really works if you use it as a way to develop resilience in the face of failure.

I’m about to turn 31, so when I was a teenager, I feel like I thought about my body, particularly the size of my body, every single day, which makes me feel embarrassed and sad but I doubt I’m alone

How do you guard against therapy-speak being used as a manipulation tactic?

I like to think I’ve a good sense of humour and, anyway, I wouldn’t get away with using therapy-speak with my family or friends, particularly my boyfriend, who is especially practical. I know that there has been a lot of discussion about therapy-speak being used to mask manipulation, but I also think it’s used as a way to avoid open and honest dialogue with other people, and ourselves. I think it can be used to convolute and confuse an issue unnecessarily, because we’re afraid of being direct, sometimes.

Can people become so introspective that they lose grip of the hard-won self-awareness therapy can offer?

I’m no expert, but I think so, sometimes. I worry that it might make me self-centred, and that I’ll only care about my own feelings and become really inflexible and unavailable. I still haven’t learned how to properly stick up for myself, though, so maybe that’s still a while off for me yet.

If the goal of therapy is to overcome all of our faults, might we lose all our idiosyncrasies and uniqueness too?

Yes, I think about that a lot. What happens to all the great memoirs and biopics if people don’t have the life experience to draw on? But I don’t think that’s really the purpose of therapy, and I don’t think there is a solution for human flaws, thankfully. I don’t believe therapy is always the solution, anyway.

The protagonist in your story Push and Pull goes on a crash diet and takes ‘deep satisfaction in this erasure of my body and mind’. How hard is it to grow up as a young woman in Ireland?

I’m about to turn 31, so when I was a teenager, I feel like I thought about my body, particularly the size of my body, every single day, which makes me feel embarrassed and sad but I doubt I’m alone in that experience. Now young women are interested in being strong (I still think that this is an excessive preoccupation with physical appearance but hopefully it’s a healthier one) while I think girls my age only wanted to be thin. Even now, this is the first thing that comes to mind when I try to recall my experience. I was very interested in books and art and music, and I wish I had given this more energy sooner.

In what ways does your generation see or experience the world differently?

I think I’m categorised as a younger millennial, and as far as I can see, we still want what our parents had but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. I still think of myself as a 21-year-old, so it’s very funny to me when I meet someone my age who is married with children. It feels like a very far-away concept.

You have a novel, Family Relations, coming in 2025. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Family Relations is about a couple that perseveres through an unhappy marriage for many years, long after they should have called it quits. I think there are lots of Irish couples like this, and I’m interested in the way that resentment can mellow after a while, as well as the way people can fall in and out of love with the same person. I’m having a great time writing it!

'Drumheller, in Alberta’s Badlands, is the most remarkable place I've visited. It is so different from the Irish landscape.' Photograph: iStock

Which projects are you working on?

Mostly the novel, but I’m also trying to write more essays.

What is the best writing advice you have heard?

To share your work in progress with a few people who like your work. I think when you share a draft with lots of different people who aren’t familiar with your work, you can be overwhelmed by their feedback.

Who do you admire the most?

I feel huge admiration for the advocates and journalists who have been constantly and tirelessly drawing our eyes to the genocide unfolding in Palestine. One example I can think of is the writer Mick Magee, who has worked incredibly hard to give a voice and platform to Palestinian writers and artists.

You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?

If I was selected as supreme leader, I’d immediately resign. I would find this level of power much too stressful. I have a hard enough time managing my own simple little life, never mind national infrastructure.

Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?

My favourite podcast is Heavyweight, hosted by Jonathan Goldstein. I believe the podcast is on pause but there are dozens of episodes available, and I’d highly recommend for those who haven’t listened. I thought Past Lives was a beautiful film, and it’s currently on Netflix. A book I’d recommend is the memoir In Ordinary Time, by Carmel McMahon, which was released last year.

The most remarkable place you have visited?

A place called Drumheller, in Alberta’s Badlands. I visited in 2020, and it was very quiet. It’s known as the dinosaur capital, because a lot of fossil excavation was carried out there. It was so different from the Irish landscape, and to me looked like the north American landscapes depicted in film and books. Alberta in general was very interesting, because it’s so far from the sea.

Your most treasured possession?

A cartoon drawn decades ago on the back of a hardware shop leaflet by my late grandfather, depicting a man (likely him) at a work bench, accidentally hitting himself in the hand with a hammer when aiming for the nail. He was a great artist, and I believe he drew this while bored at his job in the hardware shop one day. I like to think of him making art while bored at work, and I like looking at this drawing, which I have framed, when I’m feeling a bit discouraged myself.

What is the most beautiful book that you own?

East of Eden, given to me by my boyfriend’s dad, Phil. I think it’s beautiful because it means so much to him, and he remembers reading it as a young person and the impact it had on him. I like to be given books by people who love them, because it reminds me of how books can stay with us for many years after we’ve read them.

I’m nearly certain that it was a John McGahern character who levelled this very witty accusation when talking about someone he considered a bit dim: “God gave him a brain to keep his ears apart”

Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?

I get very nervous around writers that I admire, so I don’t know how well the dinner would go, but I’d risk it anyway and invite Vivian Gornick, Nuala O’Faolain, Maeve Binchy, John McGahern, Richard Yates and probably a few more contemporary writers like Anne Enright and Willy Vlautin, just to see how they all get on.

The best and worst things about where you live?

The best thing is that my apartment has a lot of windows, and overlooks a lot of coniferous trees. I’d probably like to be nearer to a coffee shop but this feels like a minor complaint.

What is your favourite quotation?

I’m not 100 per cent sure of this, but I’m nearly certain that it was a John McGahern character who levelled this very witty accusation when talking about someone he considered a bit dim: “God gave him a brain to keep his ears apart.” It’s so mean but, unfortunately, very funny.

Who is your favourite fictional character?

Bill Furlong in Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These. He seems so true and gentle, and I think he’d just be very pleasant company. I also like Del Griffith in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

A book to make me laugh?

For some reason, I struggle to find books that make me laugh. Probably David Sedaris’s essay collection Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim.

A book that might move me to tears?

The Hero of This Book, by Elizabeth McCracken. This is a novel about the relationship between a writer and her parents, particularly her mother, who is incredibly funny and resilient. It’s a book about grief and family, as well as the experience of progressive disability, and it impacted me deeply.

Free Therapy is published by Jonathan Cape on March 14th