JIM McGOWAN, a quietly spoken Dubliner, had a story included in Heineman's Best Short Stories 1995; alongside William Trevor, John McGahern, Alice Munro and Muriel Spark. He still cannot believe it.
"That they would write and ask permission. That's astonishing," he says. Clare Boylan, reviewing the book in the Sunday Independent, described McGowan as, "one of the outstanding new writers in the anthology. The story keeps your heart in your mouth from start to finish".
Jim McGowan started writing in his 50s. He left school when he was 14 years old, and did not read as a child. So where does his visual, poetic writing stem from? McGowan shrugs, and suggests that it may have come from his childhood, which he describes as "deprived".
"My father sat at home behind a newspaper, refusing to speak to anybody," he tells me. "He was a terrible presence. There had to be complete silence in the room. Yet I watched him from the window when he was going out, and he'd be most cordial to the neighbours. He had a thriving business." Sounding bewildered, McGowan says: "I always felt this was a terrible loss for me, and also for him. I have a great sense of sadness and anger; and I imagine that's what good writing is about. Expressing that emotional self."
Dancing Spirit
McGowan has no idea why his father was silent. "My mother's only comment was, `I don't understand'," he tells me, his expression softening. "She was an extraordinary character. She was able to retain her dancing spirit."
McGowan, the youngest of six children, doesn't think of his childhood with total sadness. He liked his school; the Christian Brothers played football with him, and he looked forward to weekends, and spending time with his friends. McGowan is not a sad person. His face is perpetually poised on the edge of a smile, and he laughs readily, an infectious spontaneous sound.
When he left school McGowan worked for a painter and decorator, and eventually he set up his own business. Meanwhile, he had married, and bad four sons. "I loved being with them," he tells me. "Walking by the sea, and having adventures." But his marriage broke up when his children had left home.
"Having a father that didn't talk, I think that focused attention on the whole business of relationships," he says. "I wanted the ideal family; the ideal marriage, and I tried to relate to my wife as an idealised version of what I felt a woman should be, rather than relating to her as a person. It was a disservice to her, and ultimately a disservice to me," he admits.
Boring Business
Until recently, McGowan only read when a book happened to be lying about. He had not read the great masters. "As a child, there was no one to encourage a love of books," he tells me. "Libraries were `strange places', and university was a building in the centre of Dublin that people sometimes talked about." Yet after the break up of his marriage, McGowan owned, and managed a bookshop. "It was a boring business really," he tells me, "It wasn't about what was between the covers of a book, and I only had time to read catalogues". He had to write advertisements that were eye catching and immediate, and he recognised that he had that ability. People talked about his ads.
A friend encouraged him to enter the Listowel competition in 1985. Drawing on his childhood, this, his first story, focused on the joy of meeting pals, brimming with energy and life, contrasted with the mood of terrible silence, in that room. The story won first prize, and encouraged, he later wrote for competitions all over Ireland, winning many, including those at Cootehill, Wexford and Clonmel. The Wexford story explored alcoholism, and Kate Cruise O'Brien, one of the judges, commented on his "extraordinary ability to enter the mind of a woman so accurately".
Since then McGowan has attended various workshops, and he is a member of The Inkwell writers' group in Dublin.
"I love the company of writers," he tells me. He enjoys writing for radio and has been broadcast on RTE and the BBC. A story based on his time in Calcutta, featured on the BBC World Service. He has also had humorous pieces broadcast. "I wrote a funny piece about `orgasm' recently," he says.
Weary Fascination
"I have a passionate interest in all things Irish. I love the language, McGowan says, "and the way the words are put together." He is fascinated by nature. In his writing he explores "all the contradictions of life and man that are so chilling". He watches the news with a weary fascination. One of his recent, so far unpublished stories deals with child abuse. "It's terrible," he says. "The hypocrisy. Great holy Ireland, and all the time these things were going on. And only now, people getting the courage to say, yes, I was robbed of my innocence."
McGowan's fast moving Belfast based story, A nation once again, was published in Strand magazine, before being included in Best Short Stories. On the strength of this achievement, he has decided to take his writing seriously, and is contemplating a novel. "I feel compelled to write," he says, "but I hate sitting down by myself. I have to overcome the conflict between the loneliness of the job, and the terrible desire for company".
A Nation once again, by Jim McGowan is in Best Short Stories 1995, edited by Giles Gordon and David Hughes. Heinemann paperback retailing at £8.99.