The author Frank McCourt, who became a millionaire by recounting his miserable childhood in Limerick, spoke to the gliterrati at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival last weekend. Another speaker was one Bill Clinton.
McCourt said he is now writing a novel, and finding it tough going. After two volumes, his memoirs have come to a temporary halt. "All the ex-wives need to die, just as my mother needed to die before I wrote Angela's Ashes." He wouldn't dream of returning to live in Ireland: "I would find Dublin claustrophobic. There is a literary community there that I would not get along with. It's acrid. I just prefer to be in New York".