There are three items for celebration on the agenda. Congratulations are on everybody's lips. There's a buzz of anticipation in the book-shop. Emer Martin is about to read from her second book, More Bread or I'll Appear, which was published in the USA last year to great acclaim. And she has just been awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. And to top it all off, love is in the air. Emer's brother Daragh Martin has just announced his engagement to Australian Kellie Muir. Theirs was a whirlwind romance, the two confide. They met in the Norseman, that well-known Dublin hostelry, about six months ago and plan to marry in October. Congratulations, whispers a passing friend.
Emer, the writer herself, with jet-black hair, in petrol-blue trousers and a black jacket, is a Dubliner. She has lived in Paris, London, the Middle East and the US. Her first book, Breakfast in Babylon, was winner of the Best Book of the Year at the 1996 Listowel Writer's Week. Her mother and father, Marguerite and Eamonn Martin are here to enjoy the reading too. "She always kept diaries and notes from a young age - even in her wild days," says her father, with the hint of a glint in his eye. "Her wild days are far from over!" a friend interjects. And the story? "It's about an Irish family of five children," Emer says. "The eldest daughter disappears one summer and the mother asks the youngest to go out and search for her."