Beyond the fact that we both possessed Monaghan mothers and have roots in that “same stony grey soil”, I can think of no reason to ever compare myself to Patrick Kavanagh, one of Ireland’s greatest ever poets. But I can at least compare the fate of our books in the windows of Hodges Figgis. Among the State papers released in 2018 there are several formal statements that a Garda Sergeant Noel C. Reynolds needed to take from Dublin bookshop owners in October 1938, including one from William Figgis, then owner of Hodges Figgis in Dawson Street.
These police reports noted how, in front of startled shoppers and passers-by, Kavanagh threatened various bookshop owners “with the object of compelling them to stock” his first novel, The Green Fool, and to display it in their windows. One bookseller noted that Kavanagh “appeared to have some drink taken” as he “commenced throwing books off the shelves onto the floor”, complaining about shops not “giving my book a fair do. They are not displaying it in the window.” As his innovative ways to subtly persuaded them to display it in the window included – according to the State Papers – the utterance of such encouragements as “By God, I’ll break his skull,” and “I’ll wreck the joint,” I suspect that October 28th 1938 was an interesting day to be passing Hodges Figgis.
By comparison I can only rejoice and thank the great staff in Hodges Figgis who have not only displayed my new debut book of stories in the window but also displaying a large window poster for the book. And, also in comparison, I can only console them because, unlike in October 1938, there are far fewer few passers-by and shoppers to see it, as Dublin city enters this latest phrase of lockdown. I remember Paul Durcan and Michael Hartnett both telling me about their excitement and sense that their first books were truly published when they hurried to Parsons Bookshop on Baggot Street Bridge to see them displayed there in the window. Secrets never Told is probably displayed in bookshops across Ireland, but for me in locked down Dublin, I can only settle for the same sense of feeling that the book is finally out (after forty-four years in the making) by seeing it displayed not just in the window of Hodges Figgis but also in the Irish Independent, where a condensed version of the first story has been published to its publication, if anyone is curious to look for it online (Sept 19th).
It is wonderful that bookshops and papers are being so generous with their space, although my inner Monaghan poet does rather regret that I’ll miss my chance to make it into the official state paper to be released decades from now.