Books: Cork author recalls his city childhood for new novel

A Cork-born author has moved away from his usual crime fiction and penned a novel that draws on his memories of growing up in the city’s northside.

Denis McCarthy, originally of Churchfield, says he has been working on Threads Of Home: A Cork Story for a decade.

“I was speaking to some of my old school friends. We reminisced about how our childhoods were more innocent and spoke about how different we may be if we grew up now,” says Denis. “The conversation questioned if young people today are as happy as those in the past. Have we lost the innocence of youth?”

Denis, who now lives in Manchester having left Cork in the 1990s, says of Cork: “I grew up in an area of high unemployment and there was very little for those growing up to do, other than to create their own adventures. Some of these are mentioned in the book.”

Denis’s previous novel, Last Of The Fruit Kings, was about four friends growing up before and during World War I and the impact of the 1916 Easter Rising. “This led me to look at how children and teenagers grew up during my youth and in recent years,” he says. “I’ve set the time in my new book in recent years, but pulled the narratives from the ’80s in Cork city and beyond. These include funny, scary, and sad times, but I think it reflects the times.”

The main character in Threads of Home: A Cork Story, Fintan O’Shea, is born into a big family of six sisters and five brothers. Times are hard but the family pulls together.

Fintan is the youngest and the death of his father puts extra pressure on the family. School and the freedom of his childhood are an escape for Fintan and his friends.

“Their many mischievous adventures are captured in the book, which I think will reflect a lot of people’s childhoods,” says Denis. “ I also believe it will question if childhood exists anymore, or if our young people are growing up too quickly. Fintan suffers death and has to make big decisions about his future as he nears his 18th birthday. This brings with it a strain in friendships. There is a strong sense of identity in our main character, which grows as he travels. The innate need to travel and escape the city he grew up in, conflicts with his continual desire to return to Cork,” says Denis (inset left).

“Ireland has a deep history of emigration, which continues today. The world has grown smaller but the safety of one’s home town is never far away. Our main character is forced to make a decision. I hope, when reading the book, readers will remember their own time growing up and their own humourous adventures, while perhaps trying to see new experiences through their own children.”

The book is available in paperback at Amazon and Kindle.