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Kala was, in no uncertain terms, the best book I read last year. Sneaking onto my nightstand at the tail end of December, this spectacularly thrilling novel kept me up into the small hours, sucked deep into this world of Colin’s creation.
Set in a seaside town on Ireland’s west coast, three old friends are thrown together for the first time in years. They were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lanann as their group’s white-hot centre. Soon after that summer’s peak, Kala disappeared without a trace.
Now it’s fifteen years later. Human remains have been discovered in the woods. Two more girls have gone missing. As past and present begin to collide, the estranged friends are forced to confront their own complicity in the events that led to Kala’s disappearance, and to try to stop Kinlough’s violent patterns repeating themselves once again…
A deeply enthralling read, I cannot recommend it enough.
Read on for our interview with Colin…
I thought about writing for years, and I was very good at that because it didn’t involve doing any writing whatsoever. When I eventually began, I didn’t have a clue. So here’s how I taught myself: if I loved a book, I’d read and listen to every interview I could find with the author. I’d learn about their processes, techniques, influences. Then I’d check out those influences – reading all the novels and writers they were inspired by. If I loved one of those books, I’d repeat the process: going through every interview I could find, learning how and why they did what they did.
Through this patchwork curriculum I began to get a sense of how fiction worked, and I was already writing short stories. After a year of doing that, I won the RTE Francis MacManus Short Story Prize. That’s how I got my agent. The first time we met, I was already working on paragraphs that eventually became Kala.
At the end of 2015 I was on the verge of moving to the US. I had no money, and my financial future depended on the Stateside move. By that point I hadn’t read a novel in years. Literally years. My love of literature had been killed by studying English in college. But on Christmas Day 2015, I started to read A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. Perhaps it’s because I’d had a few years away from university, but as I read that novel it was like rediscovering something I deeply loved while also meeting it for the first time. It felt like all the doors in my mind were being kicked open.
I knew I had to change my life; I knew I had to make literature the centre of everything. That was when I decided I was going to write fiction. I chose not to move to the US and started to write my first short story the following day. The coming years were financially stressful – I cobbled rent together month by month from three badly paid jobs, spending every free moment teaching myself to write – but I knew I was doing the right thing. It’s a cliché to say ‘this book changed my life’, but Marlon James’ novel changed mine. It inspired me to begin.
The first spark for Kala was an image I had of a teenage girl sitting on the porch of her house. It was dusk, summer, the house was at the mouth of the woods and the girl was smoking a rolled cigarette. I knew she was waiting for something, and that her grandmother was inside. There was a feeling of hazy swelter, but also of encroaching darkness. I knew this girl was special, both haunted and haunting, and that in some terrible way, she was already lost. The tone and vibe of the book were all there, in that one image.
A reckless leap of faith is at the heart of every vital thing in life.
It’s slow and incremental until it’s not. Notes on paper or in my phone first – an image, a phrase, a snatch of dialogue, whatever. Get enough of those and then you start typing them up, which leads to fleshing out the fragments and seeing where there’s a pulse. This part is very slow, a bit like pushing a boulder up a hill. But do it long enough and you begin to get a solid sense of the characters and story trying to come through the fog. At a certain point, you’re just in there – you know what you have – and then it’s like you’ve tipped the boulder over the hill and you’re chasing after it, trying to keep up. In those moments, it’s euphoric.
I think inspiration isn’t about finding an idea, but more about being open to an idea when it presents itself. Which is to say, sparks of inspiration are genuinely everywhere, all the time. Your job is to have eyes to see them and the skill to catch them. Whenever I’m blocked I know it’s a me-problem; I’m not allowing myself to be receptive.
I don’t have a top three, but three major influences on Kala were The Secret History by Donna Tartt, Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood and The Girls by Emma Cline.
Lucia Berlin, Céline Sciamma, Mary Gaitskill, Elena Ferrante, Billy Wilder, Roddy Doyle.
Wendy Erskine’s first novel is coming out next year and I think it’s going to be amazing. She’s already one of the best short story writers to come from this island.
The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney would be a blast of fresh air for any Leaving Cert student. It has great teenage characters, it’s funny and sexy and violent and it explores a side of contemporary Ireland that we’re encouraged not to see. Teenagers would devour it.
Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt is not just one of the best books I’ve read this year, it’s one of the best books I’ve read, ever. I’ve made it my mission to tell everyone about it – more people should know this book, it got no attention when it came out and it deserves so much better.
Read as much as possible. The reader in you will always be better than the writer in you, and only Reader You can improve Writer You. Read stuff that you find nourishing and creatively expansive, read as a writer, and don’t ever be ashamed of your taste. The other bit of advice is to cultivate routine and discipline. I honestly believe that most people have the raw talent to be a writer. The thing that translates raw talent into actual stories is discipline; showing up at the desk, even when it’s the last thing you want to do. The process isn’t always romantic but, if you put in the hours, the magic always comes eventually.
Connection to something that’s deeper than the immediate moment and remains vital and true forever.
Colin is featured in the An Post Irish Book Awards ‘New Voices 20 Best New Irish Writers’ list. Focused on showcasing a new generation of incredible Irish writers who are reshaping the literary landscape with their fresh perspectives and captivating storytelling, the list was curated through nominations from publishers, booksellers and librarians nationwide.
Kala by Colin Walsh, €13.17, is on sale now.