Musician Brian Kennedy has written a novel, its hero an asthmatic singer coming to terms with his sexuality in west Belfast. Is this an autobiography, Brian, asks Róisín Ingle.
Brian Kennedy knows people are going to be curious about exactly how much of himself he put into his first novel. It's only natural when his impressive writing début centres around the character of Fergal Flynn, a Belfast teenager with an angelic voice coming of age and coming to terms with his homosexuality in a tiny house in west Belfast. So far, so Brian Kennedy.
Like Fergal, Kennedy is an asthmatic who grew up in 1980s Belfast dodging soldiers on his way to school. Like Fergal, Kennedy was subjected to varying degrees of abuse because the studious lad with a cow's lick in his hair was dismissed as different by his sports-obsessed brothers.
He knows that these very literal examples of his art imitating his life will also lead people to quiz him on the inspiration for the beautifully drawn love affair between Fergal and the local parish priest Father Mac, which forms the core of The Arrival of Fergal Flynn. Given that up to now his sexuality has not been fully scrutinised by his adoring public, a fair portion of whom are middle-aged women, it will be interesting to see how his loyal fan base will react to the novel's graphic sex scenes.
So a clarification is in order. Did heart-throb crooner Brian Kennedy really have an affair with a parish priest who had a penchant for red wine and Joni Mitchell? "The great relief for me in writing the novel was that I could make things up," says the 37-year-old with the air of someone who knows that this is not the last time he will be asked that question.
"Sure, my book is set in west Belfast, yes there is a gay love story and he is a singer so I can understand people saying 'Oh, of course it's about you.' But honestly it is his journey, not my journey," he adds. "I don't have twin older brothers like Fergal. And I never had an affair with a priest."
That part might not be true to life but it's fair to say that his home was often just as much of a battlefield as the one in the book. With two adults and six children living together during one of the most turbulent periods in the North's history, domestic conflict was almost inevitable.
"Jesus, of course," he says. "When there is a war outside the door, there is going to be trouble inside, even if you are all saints. And the mantra was always 'don't go over the door' because there was somebody shooting on the street or someone was shot dead at the top of the street. We spent a lot of our time in the house.
"Sometimes when I talk about what it was like to live in Belfast at that time it feels like those things didn't happen to me and I found it easier giving them to a character like Fergal to tell," he says.
While he has used elements of his upbringing in the story, Kennedy says his own father and mother, who have yet to read the novel, are not the same as the parents in the book. Fergal's mother uses her sensitive, effeminate son as a crutch, especially when operating in a haze of Valium, sometimes dressing him up in dolls' clothes to look like the girl she never had. The father is a brutal figure, beating his son for not being enough of a man and letting his other sons do the same.
"There are resonances," he offers. "My brothers are very definitely what we would call masculine Irish men ... I relate to that bit in the film Gods and Monsters, where the character says he feels like a gazelle in a family of lions. I can totally understand that thinking of 'I'm going to get devoured'. For me growing up in that house being a sensitive, obviously burgeoning homosexual was hard. In our society if you are great at sport and you are a great fighter, you are a great man. That wasn't me."
He says his brothers were mortified by him - embarrassed by the shy, slightly chubby, asthmatic teenager who related better to girls than boys. "Girls were more honest and didn't sort out problems with their fists," he explains. He was teased by his brothers because of the way he talked, the way he walked and the way his hair fell. His much-admired voice was just another source of fun for them. "Beautiful is not a word they would have used to describe it," he says ruefully.
But the relaxed and chatty Kennedy seems to have come to terms with his upbringing. "My therapist always said I had an ability to put myself in other people's shoes and that helped to understand certain things," he says.
Despite this gift he still doesn't get on with one of his brothers, the fellow musician Bap Kennedy who is now a born-again Christian and musician in London. The brothers moved to London together in the late 1980s with their band Energy Orchard but split soon afterwards. "He was a rocker and I wasn't," he says.
A defining moment came when Bap presented him with an album and told his younger brother to take some vocal tips from the singer. The album? Billy Idol's Rebel Yell. "That was near the end," says Kennedy. Albums such as The Great War of Words, A Better Man and Now That I Know What I Want achieved varying success for him since going solo at the age of 19. He is working on another On Song programme for the BBC, while gearing up for live shows at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin.
His book, though, harks back to the bleak Belfast years, while an almost completed sequel will be set partly in Italy. "With the book I wanted to explore what it was like being a flower in the dark: how are you going to live, how are you going to grow? And for Fergal the source of light comes in the form of a priest," he explains.
The positive portrayal of a loving homosexual relationship is a deliberate contrast to what Kennedy was taught as a child. "When I was growing up the only information we had about homosexuality was that it was evil; it was about abuse," he points out. "Of course even then, for the information to drop inside yourself that you fancy someone at school and he's the same sex, the next thought you have is, I am evil, I am dirty ... especially when you had the priests at school looking into your little face and telling you that you were going to burn in hell for that."
Kennedy is frank and open about his sexuality in conversation these days, more so than he has ever been, saying that the last time he was involved with a woman was five years ago. And while he describes himself as more homosexual than bisexual, he says he wouldn't rule out the possibility of being with a woman again. When I bring up the unfounded rumours concerning Kennedy and an affair with his friend Ronan Keating which surfaced a few years ago, he fields the question with a weary smile.
"Of all the people they linked me with out of Boyzone, they pick the short, blond, straight guy. They should see the men I really fancy," he laughs. Asked if he is with anyone at the moment he smiles meaningfully and says "no-one in particular". He is diplomatic when asked what he thinks about those people in his industry who hide their sexuality. "I know it's a difficult path to walk, especially if those people end up getting married or having children," he says.
"On the other hand I think there is a responsibility for people like me to talk about this stuff. I am not in the business of outing anyone, but we do need to be able to look into our culture and see other successful, happy, loving gay people so we have examples of how normal homosexuality actually is."
And that, in a way, is what he is trying to do with the book. Kennedy, who now lives in Killaloe, Co Clare, wrote it in secret between the sell-out tours and TV appearances, and was spurred on by having two short stories published in the North. He was offered a two-book deal worth six figures after an editor heard him tell a journalist on the radio that he had written a manuscript. "It was as good as getting a record deal," says Kennedy, delighted with his new role.
On the way to the interview he was listening to a radio item on the high rates of male suicide in Ireland, and it brought the issue of repressed homosexuality into sharp focus for him. "I am not saying all those suicides are linked to being gay, but there is still a lot of shame and secrecy out there," he says. "If all the book does is start a conversation within a family who have a gay son or gay daughter then I will be happy."
The Arrival of Fergal Flynn is published by Hodder Headline Ireland, €16.25