Acclaimed Irish novelist, Sebastian Barry, was this year’s Golding Speaker at the first large event of Marlborough LitFest 2023 on Friday September 29. In conversation with journalist and broadcaster Alex Clark, Barry spoke about his latest novel, published earlier this year – Old God’s Time – as well as his approach to the creative process of writing. The packed Town Hall audience were also treated to a dramatic reading of an extract from the novel.
Old God’s Time is Barry’s ninth novel in a series and is he says, “Quite a difficult book, even for the poor creature who wrote it!” Like all his novels, Old God’s Time breaks a taboo – the taboo of silence surrounding the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. “Things were happening around us that we didn’t have words for. Sixty years ago it was a feature of Irish life – ‘don’t talk about this, say nothing’. The creation of Tom Kettle, a retired policeman (the central character in the novel) was based on someone I knew and allowed me to speak out – to break the silence.”
When the novel begins Tom Kettle has been retired for nine months and is happy despite the difficult life he’s led. A storm heralds two visitors to his remote home on the wild Irish coast. They are ex-colleagues investigating an old case about priests abusing children. “He is thrown into disarray,” says Barry. “He’s under so much pressure that he can break through and experience moments that normally can’t be accessed. Not only memories of his wife, June but June herself.”
The title of the book Old God’s Time is, explained Barry, an old Irish phrase. “I like to bring back lost phrases. It means the time before the present time – inaccessible, can never be reached again.” But in the novel Tom Kettle does access ‘Old God’s Time’.
Tom Kettle has been described by critics and readers as an unreliable narrator. Barry refutes this. “You realise reading the book that some of the things Tom Kettle is vividly experiencing can’t be happening…He’s considered an unreliable narrator, but for me he’s the most reliable narrator. He’s experiencing these things and they’re real to him. I’m his amanuensis. I’m not leading you astray.”
Barry also uses details from his personal life in the novel. Tom Kettle cooks up hash just as Barry’s grandfather, who was an old army man, did. Also “The little boy living in the turret was myself or a version of myself.”
Barry admitted he was worried about the response in Ireland to him ‘breaking the silence’. However, there was, he says a real sense of freedom gained in the room the first time he spoke publically about the book. “I started the book in trepidation but finished it in jubilation. I had finally disobeyed adults and spoken out. This was my version of Irish freedom…It behoves us to talk about these things and to celebrate people like Tom Kettle who has lived a life on our behalf and when you hit him with a tuning fork you get a true note.”
Marlborough LitFest hosts an annual Golding Speaker to highlight the town’s long connection with the Nobel Laureate and Booker Prize winner, William Golding, at an event sponsored by William Golding Limited. Past Golding Speakers include Ali Smith, Elif Shafak, Ben Okri, Rose Tremain, Will Self, Lionel Shriver, Louis de Bernieres, Fay Weldon and Howard Jacobson.
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