Noelle McCarthy’s astonishing début memoir Grand, about mothers and daughters, drinking, birth and loss, running away and homecoming, became an instant best seller when it hit the shelves earlier this year.
Meg Mason described it as “Derry Girls meets An Angel at My Table” and found it “Desperately funny, hysterically sad, so beautiful and so humane”. Steve Braunias said it was “a howl of anguish and love”. And Diana Wichtel reckoned “Grand will have you reassessing the power of love; the deep and painful channels it can cut.”
You can imagine how thrilled we are to welcome Noelle to QWF 2022 this weekend. She is doing double duty with us: Marcus Lush will chat with her about Grand on Sunday but before that Noelle will interview Rebecca K Reilly on Saturday.
We asked Noelle a few choice questions ahead of her appearance.
What have you been reading lately?
The last book I read was Vincent O’Sullivan’s new book Mary’s Boy, Jean-Jacques. It’s a collection of short fiction featuring a novella about Frankenstein’s monster’s further adventures in Fiordland in the early 1800’s, around the time of first contact with European explorers-slash colonists. If that’s not a dream premise for lovers of gothic – or anyone really – I don’t know what is. It’s magnificently written too, Vincent O’Sullivan is usually better known for novels set in more contemporary times, but this captures the various interior monologues of various 19th century characters flawlessly.
Oh and I had a mild cold last week, which sent me straight back to the comfort of Marian Keyes. I’m rereading Again, Rachel and crying nearly as much as I did the first time around. There’s no-one like Marian.
Who are your literary heroes?
My favourite literary heroes would probably be a tie between Count Dracula, Merricat, the resourceful, murderous little sister in Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and Henry Winter from Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. That’s more a group of antiheroes, really, but they’re the ones I love.
Who would play you in the movie of your life?
Like everyone else, I dream of it being Melanie Lynskey.
What are you looking forward to doing in Queenstown?
Hanging out with my friends and whānau, interviewing the brilliant and funny Rebecca Reilly and checking out the teepee at the Sherwood.
What’s your life motto?
Don’t press send.
