It is day two of this challenge and I choose to continue with the theme of ‘writers who have changed my life’. The list, I warn you, could run into the hundreds if I was to continue past day three. I won’t.

J.P. Donleavey died only last year and left behind many wonderful works, the most famous (infamous?) of them being ‘The Ginger Man’. It is, to be sure, not everyone’s cup of tea in that it focuses on the irresponsible hedonistic rogue, Sebastian Dangerfield who has physically beaten his wife, has abandoned her and their child to poverty and indulged in a life of cheating, lying and drunken debauchery. Dangerfield is one of the most monstrously appalling protagonists of literature and yet one is mysteriously attracted not only to him but to the sad poetry that inhabits the novel.

So. I thank you again, Bag Lady for allowing me this moment of self-indulgence.

Here, then, is a little taste of ‘The Ginger Man’

“The sun of Sunday morning up out of the sleepless sea from black Liverpool. Sitting on the rocks over the water with a jug of coffee. Down there along the harbour pier, trippers in bright colours. Sails moving out to sea. Young couples climbing the Balscaddoon Road to the top of Kilrock to search out grass and lie between the furze. A cold green sea breaking whitely along the granite coast. A day on which all things are born, like uncovered stars.”

― J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

And lest I be accused of not playing the game and not supplying a quote that is traditionally short and snappy then here is another.

“Writing is turning one’s worst moments into money.”

― J.P. Donleavy