Louise Kennedy
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What is Louise Kennedy’s novel Stations about?
Louise, welcome to Waterstones.
Thank you very much for having me. I
should say
welcome
back, really, because
Yes, that's all right, yeah.
As an as a member of the inaugural Waterstones debut fiction prize shortlist, we have the joy now of second novels appearing, which is what we have here in stations. I'm gonna start off immediately by saying that I absolutely love this book and I have already had several conversations with other people who have picked up this book and loved it. So thank you. Well
thank you very much. That's um that's uh lovely to hear and also a great relief.
Now comes the hard bit, which is you you broke my heart again and uh uh that I can't let go. I don't know I want to know why you do this to your readers. But we'll we'll start off first of all with the characters.
How did Louise Kennedy create Roshin and Red?
Um readers are gonna meet Roshin and Red. And they're gonna meet a whole host of characters, but those are the two that we'll focus on because I'm sure that for most people those will be the two that they're taking into their hearts. Tell me a bit about creating these two characters. Where did you begin and how did they develop?
So I think I had Roshin first and I actually had her already because in my short story collection, The End of the World, is a cul-de-sac. Um the shorter story in the collection is called Belladonna and it features um Rochine maybe a year or a year and a half earlier and um she is a recent blow into not very exciting town in the Irish Midlands. Uh she's fighting with her mother, she's fighting with everybody at school. She's terribly unpopular and um she in that story she becomes kind of obsessed with this um kind of cookie couple who are across the live across the way. And um I uh you know, that story maybe is about um her not really understanding what she's dealing with. And then maybe she sort of has a a hand in
things that begin to happen for that couple that aren't really very good. Um, but she doesn't do it on purpose. So Rochine, um I kinda love Rochine because um I think her voice is very much it was very much the voice that I had at that age because uh like her, um, you know, my family had left the north of Ireland in um the late seventies, uh, when I was twelve and moved to uh not very I don't think, you know, It's um it would be unfair to say a fairly shitty little town in the Irish Midlands. And uh like her, uh everybody hated me in school and um and she's not really likable. She's you know, um I mean I don't think she's despicable, but I think because Cushlet in Trespasses, um, my first novel, um, she did some things that maybe people wouldn't agree with.
Um Um but she uh she's pretty likable and she's a you know, she's what people might consider to be a good person. And not that Roshin's a bad person, but um I just thought m it might be I felt I had unfinished business with Roshin, it might be a bit of crack um to um to um resurrect her and to give her a friend and see how she got on with that. So Red is her friend. Um Roshin's still um when stations opens in nineteen eighty two, Roshin is still struggling at school. And um I guess to maybe um make that a all of that a little easier, um sh her main tormentor is a girl called Tina. And uh Tina's like the girl that all the boys fancy and uh Tina's father um doesn't approve of Tina's boyfriend, um who's called Red and he is um the sort of fella I think you'd have lurking around the place in a in a lot of schools.
I think lots of lots of girls will remember fellas like this um where he is he has a reputation for being trouble and he's beautiful and um and a bit dangerous or something and uh Roshin agrees to carry a letter to Red. But they very quickly realize that they probably have more in common than uh Red does with Tina. And um yeah, so that's where the story starts and that's where they came out of.
You do that thing where I was reading the book and I r I realised as I was reading the opening pages that one of my favourite things in fiction is when two characters meet and they just kind of click. There's something about the way that they banter with each other that means that they're meant to be friends.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Louise Kennedy’s novel Stations about?
0:00–0:42
2
How did Louise Kennedy create Roshin and Red?
0:42–4:51
3
How did Kennedy shape Stations’ timeline, plot, and ending?
4:51–7:26
4
How do emigration and family separation shape Roshin’s anger?
7:26–11:19
5
How does Kennedy make a large cast feel vivid without making the story too heavy?
11:19–14:09
6
What was life like in 1980s London squats, and what does the title Stations mean?
14:09–16:35
7
Why is it so difficult for the characters to escape their past?
16:35–20:44
8
Can people change their actions and break harmful patterns?
20:44–24:44