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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. The Irish author Dervla McTiernan has recently published her seventh book. It's called Three Reasons for Revenge and it has become her fourth number one in Australia. It follows the lives of three vastly different people, an established psychologist, a single dad and a glamorous socialite.
They each receive a parcel to their home intended to destroy their lives once opened. I'm delighted that Dervla joins us now. Good morning to you.
Chapter 2: What is Dervla McTiernan's latest book about?
Hi, Clare, how are you? I'm very well. Lovely to talk to you, Dervlyn. Congratulations on the success of Three Reasons for Revenge. I was really interested to see it's the first book that you set entirely in Australia. And when I saw that, I said to myself, oh, we've lost her now to the Aussies. That's it. She's gone.
Well, I've been here 14 and a half years.
It was probably overdue, but it took me a little bit of time to build the confidence to take the leap. So what was that? Was that about feeling more comfortable with setting your books in Ireland up to this point?
Look, I think the first books were set in Ireland because I was so homesick. You know, I was living in Australia, adapting to the weather and the sunlight and raising kids here and missing Galway terribly. And Galway was still the place I knew better than anywhere else in the world. I think it was really natural to set books there.
But I set two novels in the US and partly that was like a market thing. I had my publisher in the US wanted US set novels. And then in time, they just opened up and they were much more flexible and they were happy for me to write a book anywhere. And I think that just combined with a growing interest in Melbourne and the fact that this idea was really a city set book and it just all came together.
And I'm sure when you left Ireland back 14 and a half years ago, as you said, did you expect at that time it would be a permanent move?
know we we thought we were going for five years like so many other people and then look I mean opportunity Australia's been very kind to us as a country my husband's a civil engineer so for his work and I wasn't a writer before I came over here I had been a lawyer but I started writing and and the Australian writing community and and book selling community kind of embraced me and the children are really Australian now Freya was born in Ireland but our son was born here and and over time it just kind of became more obvious that this was where we were going to settle.
Yeah, I think once your children become settled and they are, you know, of Australia now, as you say, it's very difficult, isn't it, to uproot them.
We talked about it briefly when our daughter was going into secondary school because we thought, OK, this is probably the last opportunity. But at the time, it just wouldn't have made any sense for us. And since then, I think I've just had to try and slowly convince myself that this is it. I still struggle with it sometimes with the idea that it's forever.
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Chapter 3: Why did Dervla decide to set her book in Australia?
Whether or not that ever happens, who knows?
But you can aim for it. Listen, let's talk about the book Three Reasons for Revenge because it's a fascinating concept that three people receive this parcel that changes each of their lives. Was that inspired by something in particular or was it just something that bubbled up?
It was something that bubbled up and eventually I kind of realised where some of that bubble came from. But I didn't know, I didn't realise it when I was writing the book. But do you remember the movie Seven with Brad Pitt?
I do.
Believe it or not, that movie is 30 years old, which freaks me out, but it is. And there's a scene at the very end of the book where a cardboard box is delivered to a desert and Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are there and Brad Pitt is screaming, what's in the box? And I won't mention what's in the box in case you haven't seen the movie, but...
It's the idea that this innocuous, almost household object can contain such utter destruction. Like in that moment, once you open that box, everything changes. There is no going back. And I didn't realize I'd drawn that probably from that source until really until I started talking about the book coming into publication and I sort of put it together.
So I think it's funny where you just draw those bits of old memories, bits of movies, bits of TV shows, conversations you've overheard. They all come together to make something new.
I mean, that is the thing, though, with a parcel that arrives, with a phone call that you get, with a WhatsApp message that you get. All of those things have the potential to change everything, don't they?
right in that moment and I think just capturing that feeling that tension in your stomach even the fact that for most of these characters they don't recognize this for what it is in the moment they're opening this box and they can't make sense of what they're looking at it doesn't seem like much but it becomes everything.
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