In a new series in which people describe their first encounters, writers Douglas Kennedy and Declan Hughes discuss their friendship, in conversation with FRANCES O'ROURKE
DOUGLAS KENNEDYhas published 11 novels: his latest, The Moment, a bestseller in Europe, has just been published in the US. The Woman in the Fifth, starring Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas, the second movie based on one of his novels, opened recently in France, where he was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2006. Born and raised in Manhattan, he spent a year in Trinity College, Dublin in 1974, and returned to live in Dublin from 1977 to 1988, where he started Stage One theatre company before becoming administrator of the Peacock Theatre at the age of 23. He has two children, Max and Amelia, and now divides his time between Maine, London, Paris and Berlin. He and Declan Hughes met first in the 1990s.
'One of my great friends was the late Stewart Parker – we did his play Nightshadein the Peacock in the theatre festival in 1979. He was in his late 30s, I was 23. He was like an older brother to me. Stewart and his niece Lynne were always saying 'you've got to meet Declan Hughes, we'll get you together and we'll walk away, you'll never shut up'. So we eventually met in some pub off Grafton Street, Neary's I think. And that was it.
"We both have a similar dark and slightly absurd sense of humour. I remember seeing Digging for Fireand thinking immediately, dammit, this guy is good. And then his play I Can't Get Started, about Dashiell Hammett, and New Morning. We don't agree about everything, I'd find that tedious. Declan is very spiky, sharp as hell. We riff off each other all the time, he's a culture vulture. If I drop the name of someone like director Anthony Mann or writer Charles Willeford, he'll know who I'm talking about. Today, we're agreeing we don't like Joan Didion. It's part of our ongoing conversation, we can bounce things off each other all the time. I'm floored by his cultural knowledge.
“He had a successful career as a playwright and still does, but now I think his crime novels are doing for Dublin what Chandler did for LA. He’s in touch with the street as well as the nouveau riche .
“If you survive literary life in Dublin, you can survive anywhere. Dublin gave me a great opportunity, toughened me up. What’s good about our friendship is that we support each other: he supported me through my divorce. The first topic in our conversation is about our kids, I’ll ask how his daughters are. When I told him today that Max – my 19-year-old son, who’s autistic, but very high-functioning, is applying to universities in the UK and the US, an amazing achievement for him – he went ‘how about that’.
“We’re both family men, with responsibilities, but fundamentally, because we’re both working writers, we ‘get it’ with each other. Declan has amazing curiosity, he’s so connected to all that’s going on, with the world of money, e,g,, and what it’s done to Irish society.
"The thing about writing is that we don't take it for granted: it's a hard business, with reversals of fortune. The Jobdied in the US; success started with The Pursuit of Happiness, which I started writing without a publisher. More than anything, you're always alone with it. You can talk about it but you have to get back to your desk to get on with it.""I left Ireland in 1988 but I keep in touch by phone, it's not expensive any more, and we see each other twice a year, last time in Paris. Declan is one of the few male writers I have a close friendship with."
Playwright and thriller writer DECLAN HUGHESco-founded Rough Magic theatre company with Lynne Parker after studying at Trinity College, Dublin, in the early 1980s, directing then writing hit plays like Digging for Fire. He was its artistic director and writer-in-association with the Abbey Theatre. He has written five thrillers since 2005; his most recent book is City of Lost Girls. He grew up in Dalkey, Co Dublin and now lives in Dún Laoghaire with his wife, costume designer Kathy Strachan and their two daughters.
'I was in Players ; we were aware of Douglas's Stage One, but we were very self-absorbed. Stage One was fading out as Rough Magic was coming in. I didn't know Douglas then, was just aware of him as friend of Stewart Parker. "The early years of Rough Magic were years of cold bedsits and complicated financial arrangements; as well as Lynne and myself it included people like Pauline McGlynn, Stanley Townsend, Ann Enright and Martin Murphy. A few of our friends left, among them Alan Glynn who went to New York for 10 years. It feeds into Ed Loy , it's the path not taken. "Lynne kept saying, you must meet Douglas, and we did meet at Neary's; at one stage we went to Eddie Rockets to refuel. In the early 1990s, he'd seen Digging for Fireat the Bush in London. We bonded over noir fiction, old black and white noir movies, N ostalgia, Frank Sinatra. Douglas was writing noir, in the Highsmith mould.
"Within three years, those of us in Rough Magic were making some sort of basic living. The first big change was moving from directing into writing plays. My first one, I Can't Get Startedwas a memo to self to write crime novels. Later, I was writing screenplays for movies that weren't produced, wrote Shiver in 2003, a play set after the dotcom boom that was quite prescient – but no one likes a scold at the party. So then I buckled down and wrote the first book.
“Is writing five novels in five years energetic? It’s important to produce, I got good example from Douglas, who had quite a dyspeptic view of Dublin as a graveyard of ambition.
“I started out with the idea of the writer as artist, but when money runs out, it’s down to business. I put on plays for people to see and write books for people to read. I’ve been a full-time writer for 20 years and I’ve just finished the draft of a new play.
“Douglas and I have a similar sense of humour. He’s a great telephone man, and he has insomnia – if a call comes in at 8.30am, I know it’s him.
“Writers tend to be control freaks, have a tendency to never shut up; we find it’s fun to compete, see who’s got better lines – it’s entertaining, for us anyway. “He’s been through the mill, and has worked hard to get his son Max the education he should have been entitled to. When my elder daughter started secondary school this year, he sent a bottle of champagne. “I have older sisters, was always in search of an older brother. Our friendship has longevity. He’s a writer, he gets it, the neurosis and the neediness.”
