Something For The Weekend - Louise Kennedy's cultural picks

Louise Kennedy's debut short story collection The End of the World is a Cul-de-sac was released in the spring, to considerable acclaim. Her writing has appeared in literary journals including The Stinging Fly, The Tangerine, Banshee, and she has written for the Guardian, The Irish Times, BBC Radio 4 and RTE Radio 1. She was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award in both 2019 and 2020.

Sligo resident Louise will appear at this year's Cairde Sligo Arts Festival, at the Writing from the West event on Tuesday 6th July - find out more here.

We asked Louise for her choice cultural picks...

FILM

Captain Fantastic (2016), currently on Netflix. Viggo Mortensen is magnificent as Ben, a lone parent rearing a rabble of children off the grid. His version of home schooling includes knife-wielding, celebrating Noam Chomsky Day and a spirited if uncomfortable discussion of Nabokov. When the family goes on the road to attend a funeral, the outside world begins to encroach on the one Ben has worked so hard to make. The costumes and cinematography are gorgeous, and a strangely thrilling rendition of Sweet Child of Mine nearly killed me.

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MUSIC

On Friday nights I play Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra. Loudly. If there is wine involved I sing along.

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BOOKS

Lucy Caldwell is one of my favourite writers. Her new short story collection, Intimacies, is exquisitely written, intelligent and deeply affecting.

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Listen: Lucy Caldwell talks to RTÉ Arena

PLAY

The last play I saw was Conor McPherson’s Uncle Vanya at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, on March 4th 2020 (Looking back, there was a lot of coughing going on). Incredible performances and the most beautiful set I have ever seen.

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TV

I watched five episodes of Mare of Easttown last night. Dear God, the tension. Much as I’m in awe of the acting and gripped by the plot, I’m fascinated by the America on view here: middle class cancer patients working night shifts in 7 Elevens throughout their treatment, opiod-addled former gymnasts whose addiction began with a doctor’s prescription. Extraordinary and terrifying stuff.

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GIG

The last gig I went to was The Cure at Malahide Castle, in June 2019, after a boozy lunch. I still have tickets for The Pixies in Galway (July 2020)…maybe next year.

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ART

I first came across the work of Sir John Lavery when I was a teenager and saw his painting The Artist’s Studio hanging in the National Gallery of Ireland; like much of his work, it featured his American wife, Hazel. It turned out I was already familiar with the pair; Lavery’s image of his wife draped in a shawl had adorned Irish banknotes for over fifty years. I’ve been thinking a lot about how fine a line Lavery had to tread as a Belfast-born Catholic who both supported the cause of Irish nationalism and moved in British high society. This is most evident, I think, in his painting The Trial of Roger Casement. It is so quietly subversive; not even the pomp of a British court can distract from the pale, doomed figure in the dock.

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PODCAST

This week I listened to writer and journalist Susan McKay on Una and Andrea’s United Ireland podcast. She talks about everything from growing up in Derry to working in the Irish Press to covering the Belfast rape trial. Smart, warm and very, very funny.

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TECH

I can’t even turn on our television so am not best placed to answer this. Although my friend Una Mannion told me about Power Thesaurus and now when sit down to write, I open it before I open Word.

THE NEXT BIG THING...

There is such exciting new writing coming out of Belfast at the moment. Worth watching are poets Scott McKendry, Padraig Regan and Manuela Moser, the prose writer Michael Nolan and The Tangerine magazine.

Louise Kennedy appears at this year's Cairde Sligo Arts Festival, at the Writing from the West event on Tuesday 6th July - find out more here. The End of the World is a Cul-de-sac (published by Bloomsbury) is out now.