Miriam meets Wood Point author Paul Kestell

Tapes from the show they pulled:




MOC: This is your second novel?


PK: It is, my first novel was Viaréggio it got great reviews but some people didn't get it especially agents and publishers.


MOC: Really oh my God I don't believe you!


Pk: No, it is true, I am afraid that Viaréggio got reviews that would put most mainstream publications to shame but it still wasn't enough to secure a publishing deal, I can only guess as to the reasons why, but some of the press coverage it got was awesome!


MOC: Really oh my God people will say that your are blowing your own trumpet.


Pk: I am Miriam this is a lonely business and I am a very lonely man, if you get my drift.


Moc: I do I do honest I do, you will have me in tears in a minute, you probably dream of being one of the greats do you like John Boyne, or Joe O' Connor, maybe even a Colm Toibin?


Pk: Did you ever read Joe O' Connor's the 'Birdcage,' ?


MOC: Can't say that I have but I love Joe O' Connor and I love John Banville in fact I love all our great writers I would even love you Paul if I was told to you know?


Pk: It was the worst novel I have ever read even worse than Julie Parsons, and yer woman Enright, and that boring fella Toibin, and that John Boyne.


MOC: You do sound very bitter if you don't mind me saying so, like I am sure all our great writers had to serve their time like fame didn't just come knocking on the door?


Pk: Viaréggio is an fffing great book Miriam all the critics agree it is just the silly gombeen public that didn't buy it in the numbers required to make me rich, the bastards.


MOC: You really think that? My God it is incredible that you really think that. Tell me now about your second novel Wood Point like what is it about!


PK: It is about a society that has lost it's soul Miriam and it is also about love and loss and the birth of greed in this society and the beginning of the collapse of morality, this is my thesis Miriam.


MOC: My God are you sure it is about all that, like who would have influenced you to write about all of that sort of working class mumbo jumbo if you don't mind me saying so.


Pk: At the core of my novel is James Joyce he is my favourite writer, and surrounding Joyce I have Mills and Boon you know for the romantic bits, and then I have Enid Blyton you know for the bits with Bob the dog, I even called one of my characters Georgina after the one in the famous five.


MOC: Oh my God you have covered every angle you really are great you know that, I for one am so proud of you!


PK: Oh and Miriam you know the bits of violence and the goings on I based that on Dallas, and the Quentin Tarantino movies, so I have covered even more than you think, I also put in a good bit about the spaghetti westerns and Sergio leone, just so I could imagine the Ennio Morricone music in my head, pretty good hey, Wood Point will be the first novel ever with a soundtrack.


MOC: My God you have thought of everything, now I am not promising I will buy it myself but I am sure some of those bastards gombeens will this time, and if you want I can get you that agent and a publisher, as you know it is only a matter of time before I write my own saga, it will of course be a bestselling debut I know it will, oh my God I am so nice am I not. Pity on those striving to make a living with their sincere novels just like yours gathering dust on the storeroom shelves of bookshops, and even the poor darlings that write the chic lit sure most of them are starving and me look at me, a best seller first time out. You got to get the machine Paul that is all you need the machine, oh my God do you actually believe a machine can do that?