Out of the shadows

Shadowing Hannah is Dubliner Sara Berkeley's fifth book, but her first novel. First came two collections of poetry: Penn in 1986, and then Home Movie Nights in 1989. She was 19 and 22 respectively when these were published, and unsurprisingly attracted as much media attention for her achievement at such a young age as she did for the poems themselves. Next came a collection of lyrical stories, The Swimmer in the Deep Blue Dream, in 1992; followed by Facts About Water: New and Selected Poems in 1994.

It's 10 years since Sara Berkeley left Ireland. She's 32 now, and has come back to promote her first novel. For a while, she commuted between Britain and the US, but she has lived in California more or less constantly for the past eight years. Home is the San Geronimo Valley, 30 miles from San Francisco.

"Bits of it are like Connemara - except the trees are Eucalyptus and redwood," she laughs. Her partner, Talc, has a classic Californian name - except he isn't from California at all. "He's from New York. A Brooklyn Jew. So we're both migrants."

The novel, Shadowing Hannah, had its genesis in the title story of Berkeley's short story collection, which was itself the length of a novella, and which she has now developed. The novel explores the aftermath of complicit incest between a sister and brother, Hannah and Rene.

Hannah, who is 20, leaves Dublin, and Rene, for a new life in London. But while the illicit connection between the two siblings is no longer physical, it continues to be psychological as they exchange letters in which they each try to access the consequences of their actions.

"I couldn't let the characters go after I'd written the incest story in the collection," Berkeley explains. "And it was the only story I had that felt it had enough behind it. That was heavy enough."

She started working on the novel in 1992, soon after the publication of the stories. "I spent the first six months doing research in the London Library; reading psychological and anthropological essays about incest. I needed to understand more about the subject before I started writing about it."

Why was she curious about exploring the subject of incest? "To me it was just a story," she says, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't follow literature on the subject, for instance." Although it was finished three years ago, the novel has subsequently been through several rewrites.

There was a possibility of the novel being placed with a British publisher, which Berkeley decided against: "I think they wanted me to put more sex into it," she explains. "And I didn't feel happy with that. I was scared I wouldn't be able to do it."

The Irish publishers tried to persuade her to change the name of at least one of the main characters, pointing out that Rene, for instance, wasn't exactly the moniker of your average Irishman. "Dermot Bolger did say that characters can have ordinary names but be extraordinary, which of course is true, but changing the names of the characters would be like renaming grown-up children."

Given the novel's subject matter, there's a slight spookiness attached to New Island's edition. The eye-catching cover, which is designed to look like an envelope, was done by Sara Berkeley's artist brother, Jon Berkeley. She is completely unfazed by this potentially uncomfortable coincidence. "It's a work of fiction," she points out.

For several years in the US, Berkeley worked 10-hour days as a technical writer, writing computer manuals. She has just gone freelance, for the express reason that she now wants to be able to give more time to her own writing.

"I used to play it down, being a writer. I'd never introduce myself as one; I'd say I was a technical writer who wrote books on the side. But in recent times, it has become much more important to me to acknowledge the fact of being a writer. I feel I have to be more committed to it." She is about halfway through another collection of poems and has just had an idea for a new novel, but prefers not to discuss it, other than saying that it is set in the US.

Berkeley comes back to Ireland about once a year, but is very happy to remain in California. "I've moved an incredible number of times in the last few years and I really want to stay still now. I don't think about Ireland that much. I miss people, though. But the longer you're away from somewhere, the less you miss it."

Then she starts telling a story of how, driving back to Dublin from the west, she found herself on a large, new, and completely unfamiliar road. "I didn't know where I was," she reports, astonished and relating her feeling of displacement. "I mean, I could have been anywhere, but it didn't feel like the Dublin I grew up with."

But perhaps the most telling example of how long Sara Berkeley has been away from Ireland is illustrated by the fact that she looks blank at the mention of that over-exposed Irish cat, the Celtic Tiger. "Celtic Tiger?" she says, looking puzzled. "What on earth is that?"

Shadowing Hannah, by Sara Berkeley, is published by New Island Books at £8.99