Every family has an ‘inside story’

A CORK author has based a character in her new book on her grandfather from Timoleague.

Eleanor O’Kelly-Lynch has recently launched her second novel called The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes which had its origins on a West Cork island.

Living in Glanmire, Eleanor wrote the very first page of the book on Sherkin Island, specifically in the North Shore hostel which was running a creative writing weekend.

At the book launch attended by over 100 book enthusiasts, Mairead Hearne of Swirl and Thread took the author through a Q&A session where Eleanor, who worked for 12 years in 96fm, spoke about the writing process, her late start writing career and where she gets her inspiration.

The novel explores the question of ‘how does a family cope when the unthinkable happens?’ It explores the emotional territory of family and in particular, the Redmond family:11-year-old Doll who wants to escape her joyless life; her teenage sister Andi, distraught as her first love dumps her by text; their father Dan, withholding a secret that may destroy his marriage, while mum Sally suspects he is lying to her.

‘Families are complicated,’ Eleanor says. ‘Every family has an inside story, a narrative particular to them. There’s loss and loyalty and love and loneliness. There are dreams unmet, secrets untold. There’s anxiety too and always, hope. It’s all there and often invisible to the naked eye. Family can be a cauldron of emotion,' she says, 'and that’s what I wanted to write about - this family's inside story.’

Her first book is called The Girl with Special Knees, and her writing has been described as, ‘magical, filled with tension, sadness and elation’.

Throughout her life, the idea of writing a book was never far away, she said. ‘It’s only in the last five or six years that I eventually carved out the time to sit down and start writing.’