Zi7ZpiJVl2
Earlier this month, we shared an extract from the emotional, warm and gripping new title Sisterhood, a book which reveals an explosive secret that causes two sisters to question everything – and takes them from Ireland’s west coast to sun-baked Sicily.
Released on Thursday 15 February, Sisterhood is an uplifting, intriguing and empowering tale, one which sees Cathy go to the heart of modern women’s lives with her trademark brand of relatable and emotional storytelling.
Read on for our interview with Cathy Kelly…
I loved storytelling from a very young age but the idea that I could become a writer was a subliminal notion that simmered for a long time. I wrote dreadful poetry, painted endlessly as a teenager and thought about art college but somehow, ended up in journalism college in Rathmines and that set me on the path to professional writing.
I decided to write a novel when I was in my late twenties just to have done it. Being published was a lovely notion but I knew I wanted to write irrespective of getting published. I’d been talking about it for several years by this time and started to write what I’d like to read.
Sisterhood is about boundaries and how women are not always good with them. Lou, one of the main characters, is funny, kind and gets walked on by everyone because she is so endlessly lovely and hasn’t a clue about boundaries.
The novel starts just before her fiftieth birthday when we see her rather narcissistic mother forget the birthday, and her husband forget to buy her a gift on the basis that lovely Lou won’t mind. Her younger sister, Toni, is a far steelier woman who knows what she wants and understands boundaries.
However, at Lou’s fiftieth birthday party, a family secret explodes from Mommy Dearest, who has been drinking neat gin, and the sisters end up on a road trip to track down the one person who can tell them the truth. The trip takes in the West coast, credit cards inexplicably being refused and a trip to the ancient island of Ortigia in Sicily…
I always come over a bit Oscar Wilde when asked this in that people’s tastes differ so much, I would not presume to offer advice. That said, I’d advise anyone to read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Idiot by Elif Batuman. But then, that’s today! Next week, it might be a different trio.
Sitting down at my desk every work day and writing. You have to keep writing words you don’t like until you finally arrive at ones you do.
Sometimes. A combination of anything by Ella Fitzgerald or Nina Simone.
A fabulous new chair. I’m petite and have always tried to work with normal desks and chairs, and then wondered why my neck ached. It transpires that an expensive ergonomic office chair fitted by a physiotherapist is the answer.
Lofty Wiseman’s SAS Survival Guide, which I was given by his editor. It would make both surviving and getting off the island possibilities.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams because, even though it is very short, it makes me laugh.
And Neil MacGregor’s History of the World in 100 Objects because it would provide light in the shade.
Madeleine Albright’s quote: ‘There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.’