Books: I dropped medicine for poetry, but my parents were supportive

West Cork-based American writer, Rob O’Donnell (who writes as RP O’Donnell) recently launched his debut novel in De Barras in Clonakilty, his adopted town.

The 34-year-old father-of-two admits that he had a somewhat romantic view of Ireland and wanted to be a musician performing in De Barras.

While that hasn’t happened, he is pleased that he got to stand on the stage of the music pub, unveiling his mystery novel, All The Old Clocks, to the audience.

The book is set in the fictional West Cork village of Kilcraven. The main character, Sherlock Holmes fan, Emma, whose promising career in the Gardaí ended in disgrace, has moved back in with her father and works as a librarian.

But when she witnesses a murder and the local guards arrest the wrong man, the sleuth in Emma means she is forced to act to try and solve the crime.

She is helped by some of the villagers including a charming ex-boyfriend.

As she digs deep into the village’s past, Emma finds herself at the centre of a huge potential scandal that threatens to tear the locale apart.

It’s a gripping story, if a little far-fetched in places. For Rob, it’s the exciting start of a fiction writing career.

There is no time to relax either. He is currently working on the follow-up book, part of a series. And he is writing a fantasy novel.

Rob, whose day job is as a marketing writer, grew up mainly on the South Shore of Boston. At 15, he wrote an essay at school about wanting to move to a small fishing village in Ireland where he would work as a fisherman. His other ambition was to become a doctor.

For his first two years at college, he did pre-med.

“But I realised I didn’t actually want to become a doctor,” says Rob.

“I had always liked poetry and wrote it as sort of doodling.

“I fell in love with the writing of Walt Whitman and Rainer Maria Rilke and switched to an English major with a concentration on creative writing/poetry.

“That was a fun call to my parents, saying I’m switching from medicine to poetry. But they were very supportive.

“I never thought I’d end up writing a book or anything. I started writing articles in 2018 (for newspapers).”

Rob wrote about being new to Ireland, looking at our drinking habits. He was amused that Irish people tried not to drink during weekdays for fear of one or two drinks turning into an almighty session.

He, on the other hand, can drink moderately midweek and often takes a book with him into the pub – which is, he says, considered a bit odd.

Having moved to West Cork with his Irish partner, Rob says: “We went from having two jobs and one child to one job and two children.”

Looking for ways to make a living, Rob wrote articles in 2018 and 2019 but stopped to focus on his novel.

“When covid happened, the freelancing work dried up. I got to be an extra in Bodkin, the Netflix film that was partly shot in Union Hall in 2018.”

Before moving to Clonakilty when his relationship broke down, Rob says living in Union Hall “was a shock to the system because of just how small it is”.

He added: “I grew up in what I would have thought was a small town with 10,000 people in it. In Union Hall, there is just one shop and everybody knows everybody else. It was definitely a very big change, but I loved it.”

Both sets of Rob’s great-grandparents were Irish.

“There’s a little bit of German in there, but we were always told that on my father’s side, our roots are in Donegal and Mayo. I don’t know much about my mom’s side.”

Rob has noticed that in America, your job is your life.

“What you do as a career is reflective of you as a person,” he muses.

“People in Ireland work hard at their careers, but it’s understood your job is just what you do.”

Being American at the moment “is not particularly enjoyable, seeing what’s happening over there,” he remarks.

“People here are asking what is going on?

“I have family and friends in America. People ask me if I’ll move back when my kids (aged 12 and seven) are grown up. The answer is ‘no’.

“Ireland, and West Cork in particular, feels like home. I have to travel back and forth to visit my parents.

“When people fill out their visa to visit America, they have to put in their social media handles (to see if they’re hostile to Donald Trump and his administration.) It’s pretty horrible to watch what is going on.”

The grass is definitely greener here.

In 2020, Rob won the JG Farrell Award at the West Cork Literary Festival. It was for the best first chapter of a novel.

“At the time, I wasn’t trying to write a mystery novel,” he explains. “I was trying to write like Maeve Binchy and Marian Keyes.

“When I submitted my first chapter, an agent gave me very good feedback, saying the first few chapters set up a really interesting story but there was nothing happening after that; it was just people chatting.

“So she asked if I had ever thought of writing a mystery story.

“My first reaction was ‘no’. I don’t read mysteries, except for Sherlock Holmes. Also, my favourite TV show is a mystery called Psych. I quickly realised I really like mysteries. So I went back to my book.”

And the rest is a fortuitous story of writing in a genre that now excites Rob.

All The Old Clocks, by RP O’Donnell, is published by New Island. €17.95.