Damian McNicholl and A Son Called Gabriel

Set against the backdrop of turbulence in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and '70s, Damian McNicholl's A Son Called Gabriel (CDS Books) is a moving coming-of-age novel about an Ulster adolescent, Gabriel Harkin, growing up in a strict Catholic community and struggling to come to grips with his homosexuality. McNicholl's novel is an August 2004 Book Sense Pick.

In nominating A Son Called Gabriel for the Picks list, Erik Swallow of Lambda Rising in Baltimore said, "McNicholl's deftly written first novel is a vivid portrait of a young man struggling with Catholicism, politics, and homosexuality in 1970s Ireland. Beautifully told and entirely captivating, this book is a remarkable debut, full of wit and heart."

Author Damian McNicholl

BTW recently interviewed McNicholl via e-mail.

BTW: Your protagonist is growing up in an Irish society that is very divided. Was it important to you to convey the political situation in Northern Ireland?

Gabriel's story is one of secrets with a conservative, Irish Catholic culture as the backdrop: His family is keeping from him a dark secret involving his Uncle Brendan, and Gabriel in turn is keeping from them the … secret of what he feels he may be becoming. I felt it was very important to present the political milieu in which these secrets were held; however, I didn't want the politics to overshadow the novel's thrust, which is in essence an examination of family. I wanted to pose the questions -- how well do we really know our families, and how well do we allow our families to really know us? -- and have the political conflict serve both as a backdrop and run parallel with Gabriel's personal struggles.

BTW: The IRA man who finds shelter for a few nights in his father's home is shown as erudite and very human. For you, growing up in Northern Ireland, was it common to know IRA men?

In the '60s and '70s, when I was growing up in Northern Ireland, it was almost impossible for any Catholic child not to know an IRA man. They were the sons of neighbors. You see, that's when the struggle for civil rights and against British occupation was growing more and more intense, so many youths signed up to become IRA recruits. They didn't go around boasting that they were in the IRA, but everyone knew who was in the IRA, and neighbors took risks and offered them refuge if they were on the run from the British. To many young boys and girls, and, indeed, many adults, these men were heroes, protectors, saviors.

BTW: In the novel, the British Army raids Gabriel's parents home in the early hours and takes his father away to jail without a warrant….

This was a time of internment without trial. The British government, in conjunction with the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland, wielded its power ruthlessly during this period of unrest and, most unfortunately, it was the Catholic population who suffered. When I was 11 years old … my parent's home [was] raided very early one morning by the British army. I remember my mother's and sisters' terrified screams as my father (a man who had never been involved in the IRA) was dragged from his bed and taken away for interrogation. I remember the anguish, the tears, and the endless uncertainty in our home until he was released.

BTW: Gabriel struggles against, and is terrified of being, a homosexual … and then, he fears being discovered …

This situation is realistic not only for someone growing up gay in Northern Ireland at that time, but it is realistic to many boys and girls growing up gay in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world today. No young person (or very few) desires to grow up different from their friends and families in such a way. For Gabriel, the situation was compounded by the fact he lived in a rural, very conservative, albeit loving culture. He knew instinctively that his parents, teachers, and priests would never understand, much less accept, the feelings he was experiencing if he told them. During his most formative years when he needed help, he had no one he could turn to and had to fight the war raging within himself in the only way he knew how, by trying desperately to suppress the urges, by dating a succession of girls, by pleading and praying to God to change him. There are countless boys and girls throughout the world, particularly in rural and/or conservative cultures, facing these same challenges today.

BTW: Many first novels are seen as autobiographical -- to what extent is this the case in your work?

The best way to describe the work is that it is fiction with some of its roots based on personal experience.

-- Interviewed by David Grogan