Want to take a look through a bestselling author’s bookshelf?
Here we speak to Edel Coffey about the books that inspire her…
Where do you get your ideas?
My antennae are always up. I liken myself to a mechanical sorting machine, constantly picking and sorting and analysing anything that crosses my path for potential story value. It’s probably very annoying for the people in my life. I read everything from scientific journals and newspapers to fashion magazines. I love interviews with unusual people. Once something sparks my imagination, I’ll put it aside and often I’ll find another idea that goes with it and that’s when the alchemy happens.
What is your writing process like?
It’s fast-paced and intense – like my books – mainly due to circumstances. I have a busy family life so I write like mad while my kids are in school and down tools once they are home.
Which of your three books is your favourite baby?!
The first will always be special but usually my favourite is the one I’m working on right now. I’m in the thick of writing book four and am obsessed with it, but I adored writing In Glass Houses, particularly the character of Eddie, a very liberated and independent New Yorker. There are some characters that I think I write as wish fulfilment, just so I kind try on that life for a little while.
What did you do with your first advance?
I didn’t touch it for a full year. I was too afraid that somebody had made a mistake and I’d have to give it back. But eventually I relaxed enough to spend a bit of it on a family holiday. I got my first deal in lockdown so it was a doubly special trip.
How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
I was very lucky in that the first novel I wrote was the first one that got published but I did scrap a book completely and I do have lots of half-formed ideas and half-abandoned projects, but I consider it all part of the process.
What is the first book that made you cry?
I always find this question hard to answer because I’m not a big crier but I do remember bawling when I finished A.S. Byatt’s Possession. Inconveniently, I was on the DART at the time.
What is your favourite childhood book?
I still have it. It’s a battered compendium of fairy tales from all over the world that was actually quite dark for a children’s book. It was called Unfamiliar Marvels and it had amazing folk stories from Japan and Germany and all over the place that really frightened me but also developed my imagination. I loved anything that took me to another world – the Narnia Chronicles and the tales of the Tuatha de Dannan were big favourites.
What are you reading at the moment?
I am reading and loving Tanya Sweeney’s brilliant debut novel Esther Is Now Following You, the book everyoneis talking about. It’s described as Baby Reindeer but from the stalker’s perspective, but it’s also really funny.
What book should be on everybody’s shelf?
Heartburn by Nora Ephron. A perfect little novel about marriage, heartbreak and revenge that is also laugh-out-loud funny.
Which authors do you admire?
Anyone who has managed to finish a book has my admiration but I really admire Irish authors like Andrea Mara and Catherine Ryan Howard whose work ethic is phenomenal and whose books are brilliant, as well as writers who really push themselves to get better even after huge success, like Gillian Flynn, Harlan Coben and Lisa Jewell.
What was the last book that made you laugh?
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue made me ugly-laugh. It’s such a funny, plotty and enjoyable contemporary novel.
In Glass Houses by Edel Coffey is published by Sphere, and is out now.