Welcome to The Irish Times Books Podcast. In this episode, I talk to Darran Anderson about his memoir of growing up in Troubles-torn Derry, Inventory: A River, A City, A Family.
We discuss, among many other things, its themes of family, history and memory, its inspiration found in the ideas of Georges Perec, and how it relates to his previous work, Imaginary Cities, an exploration of urban landscapes that never were, or that existed only on the page or on the screen.
It’s quite a time for Derryographies. Thin Places by Kerri O Dochartaitgh is to be published by Canongate next spring and Seámas O’Reilly, who has interviewed Anderson for The Irish Times next Thursday, is bringing out his own, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?, in April. (I joked with Seámas that if the worst comes to the worst, he can always do what David Lodge did after Colm Tóibín’s book about Henry James, The Master, overshadowed his own, Author, Author, and write another book about it.)
Inventory is published by Chatto & Windus next Thursday. The podcast was produced by Declan Conlon.
