New boy of western world

In Galway Julian Gough was always something of an exotic. So it came as little surprise that he should suddenly morph from would-be rock star to star-young-novelist, and the latest "six-figure-sum" Irish writing hero. At the moment his first novel Juno & Juliet is attracting a lot of interest on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the UK the novel has been featured as Star Choice in The Bookseller, while in the US the book has been chosen for promotion alongside writers like Chuck Pahaliuk, author of Fight Club, in Doubleday's Fiction for the Rest of Us campaign (the first time a non-American has been included in this promotion campaign). Julian has also been profiled and interviewed by Publisher's Weekly in their biannual First Fictions feature, another rare honour for a non-American.

Juno & Juliet has received this attention in the US due to the personal involvement of Nan A. Talese of Doubleday Books in New York. She said she was "immediately impressed with how fun and intelligent" the novel is and she signed Julian up within hours of reading the manuscript in her hotel room, while attending the London Book Fair.

Nan Talese has a record for finding literary talent. She has published Margaret Atwood since Atwood's first novel, she has four Booker winners on her list, and had a rare double this year, with Atwood winning the Booker again, and Mathew Kneale winning the Whitbread Prize.

I met Julian in The Front Door pub on Galway's High Street. This is his local for afternoon coffee. Interviewing him is a mite awkward because we know one another.

Julian is interested and excited about art, writing, music and culture in general. Where some people struggle in the life of artistic forms, Julian seems to fling them around and have fun with them. He is one of the few people I've met who unashamedly plays in the world, delighting in its creative possibilities. In a word, he is positive.

I ask him first what he thinks about the buzz of publicity surrounding the novel. "Delighted! It's great, fantastic." His voice is light and English. He becomes serious, realising that he has given a short answer. "There are two elements to this: One, it's fantastic. And two . . . " He searches his mind for a two, then. "There is a kind of quiet satisfaction." He sits up brightly. "You see, I always knew this would happen." He throws his arms wide in celebration.

I stare at him. I can feel a summer cloud of begrudgery pass across my face. My innate Irishness takes momentary offence at this display of utter self-confidence. He stares back wondering what he has said wrong. "I know that sounds arrogant," he adds quickly, "But it's true!"

How does the current excitement contrast with the quiet life of writing?

"I don't like peace and quiet," he says. "I'm a noisy writer. I wrote Juno upstairs in a cafe at night between 12 and four a.m. Around two, the clubbers would come in drunk, trying to get the leg over, and it never bothered me. I enjoyed it. Their energy energised the writing. I can't sit quiet in a quiet room quietly writing. It's very dull. Silence can drive you mad."

He probably studied with music playing when he was in college, I suggest. "No," Says Julian. "I didn't study at all in college." Realising how irresponsible this sounds he quickly adds a disclaimer about being young and foolish and how it is not recommended as a means of getting ahead in the world. I bring up a story I'd heard from one of the English lecturers about how they used to receive postcards from Julian in Ibiza cursing them all from a height. He hangs his head in embarrassment and corrects the story.

"It happened once. I had two extended essays to deliver for my degree, one to English and the other to philosophy, and I just didn't get them done. I had wanted to write the philosophy essay as a Socratic dialogue. A play really. They said fine. But then the external examiners rejected the idea of a play. I was in Spain, writing it, when I heard. So I sent a postcard to each department saying `Here is my extended essay: F**k you'."

He becomes responsible again. "Reprehensible behaviour. I see now it was childish. Important lesson for a young writer, though. They won't accept a Socratic dialogue, and they won't accept a f**k you, so what can you do but please yourself. Actually, I got the degree a year later, for my parents. I didn't care myself really. But my parents had paid for it." He reflects for a moment on his decadent past. "Though on the other hand, I did things like that for the sake of colour in my biography. I was always looking ahead to how I might look when I'm 70. And you can get into fantastic trouble living like that."

"You were starring in the movie of your life?"

"Yes. Always."

Getting back to the novel. The story is about twin sisters, the main protagonist a girl awakening to her beauty to have it confirmed by the world. This strikes me as a highly unusual book for an Irishman to write in these days of serial killers and Francie Brady, I suggest.

"I wrote the book I wanted to read. I didn't see it anywhere, so I made up my own. Then, happily, other people wanted to read it too. I was sick of books where everything happens. Over-dramatic, huge traumas, the worst imaginable adventures where the hero struggles through endless tortures and you hardly give a shit. I wanted to write a story where hardly anything happens and you do give a shit, because the small things in life are a big deal to the people involved."

Julian is someone whose parents returned to Ireland during the 1970s, relocating their bewildered English-accented children to the windy west. I wondered if this early culture shock have anything to do with his becoming a writer?

"Coming back to Ireland completely explains me. Definitely a character-forming experience. In England I was myself, I got on well with my mates. I was the gang leader. When we came back to Ireland I was still the same person. We were in the middle of nowhere, a very republican place, and for about two or three years I got the shit beaten out of me by other kids, and by the school teachers, by anybody who felt like it really, just for being myself. I was still the same person, so one society had to be wrong, it didn't matter which one. It made no sense to me. It was as if everyone was mad. I realised then that everybody can be wrong."

"I didn't read until I came to Ireland. In England I only remember drawing hippopotamuses. But in Ireland there was no TV, except RTE, so I started to read. And once I started to read I wanted to write."

BY the age of 15 he had decided how he was going to run his life. In his 20s he would be a rock star. In his 30s, a writer. And in his 40s, a filmmaker.

"My career guidance teacher was not very impressed with this," he says.

"What kind of stuff did you read when you were young?"

"Lots of science-fiction." He looks apologetic, admitting to escapism. But as escapism goes, sci-fi is about as far away as you can get. "Later I got into the American writers: Heller, Mailer, Roth. I didn't really take to Irish writers. The Americans seemed more human. Though I'm a big fan of Beckett. I read all his novels." He considers this statement. "No, come to think of it, I never finished any of them." He laughs. "I'm a great fan of the first half of everything Beckett has ever written."

"What about contemporary Irish writers?"

"Well I'm not interested in things just because they're Irish. I just like what I like. When I was in the CBS I could relate more to being a secular Jew than being an Irish person. I related more to Portnoy's Complaint than the Irish stuff on the curriculum. I suppose there was self-censorship going on in Irish writing. Its concerns were mainly rural. It just didn't connect."

Asked if his career will entice him to London, he says: "No, I'm staying here. I love Galway, and I love London. My favourite cities are London, Galway, and Kilkenny. Is Kilkenny a city? I think it has a charter." He muses on this for a moment, then: "Galway is the ideal city in the Platonic sense. Plus you can walk everywhere. Living in Galway is not really living in Ireland. It's very cosmopolitan. It's full of European refugees who came here to find something better. They brought energy to the city. New ideas. Galway is a European refugee camp." He laughs. "But of course, it's not all rosy."

Galway has often been referred to as the "graveyard of ambition". Does he think that's justified?

"I think Ireland is the "graveyard of ambition". Though obviously there is some truth in applying it to Galway. We seem to be very easy on ourselves. Sometimes you get the impression that achieving anything at all causes amazement. So the standards don't seem to rise very far beyond the act of making something. And the pub scene encourages more talking than doing, so you get a lot of people talking about what they plan to do next year. For 20 years."

"Did you ever consider leaving?"

"Yes. A couple of years ago. I thought I must be mad trying to achieve something international from here. But then I thought if I went to Dublin or London I'd just be another Irish scribbler looking for a break. Plus, I love Galway. It's home. It's harder to achieve anything from here, but it is much more worthwhile when you do. Now I see it as my territory. Saul Bellow has Chicago, I have Galway. And with all the new developments, and TG4, and all the film companies, it is an exciting place."

Juno & Juliet will be published by Flamingo on April 2nd and in the US in July.