Writer, cartoonist and occasional Culture contributor Alan Nolan introduces his latest children's book, the latest in a series which pairs an unlikely duo of Dublin icons, the author of Dracula and the mythical subject of an ever-popular ballad...
As a children's writer I continually find myself taking mental fishing expeditions into my own childhood memories and influences, looking to trap a tiddler of an idea that might, with enough care, attention and imagination, turn into a great white shark. Or at least a mid-sized middle grade novel.
For instance, when I was young, I was crazy about three things: vampires, 2000 AD comic and the works of Charles Dickens. This trio of unlikely interests was mainly down to the influence of my granny, Nanny Gigg, a great storyteller, book lover and provider of comics half-inched from the recycling bin of the newsagent she worked in. At the tender age of eleven (my age, not hers) a mischievous Gigg gave me a battered copy of Dracula and I instantly became obsessed with Bram Stoker, reading every book by him and about him that I could find in Dundrum Library, and regularly bussing it out to Clontarf to stare at his childhood house in Marino Crescent, like some sort of miniature stalker.
During one of the many, many lockdowns we endured over the last few years, I was minding my own business, wondering how far five kilometres actually was from my house and idly re-reading the same copy of Dracula that Nanny Gigg had given me, when inspiration struck and I feverishly scribbled down the following words:
Eleven-year-old Bram Stoker, the future author of Dracula, teams up with part-time fishmonger and full-time sneak thief Molly Malone to fight crime in 1850s Dickensian Dublin.
The crumpled piece of paper I wrote this elevator-pitch-to-myself on has remained pinned over my desk for the last three years and the core idea has sustained me for two books so far: The Sackville Street Caper, published last year by The O’Brien Press and Double Trouble at the Dead Zoo, which is hitting the shelves as I write.
Both books feature the odd couple of Bram Stoker and Molly Malone, the latter being the pre-teen version of the Dublin legend, reimagined as a sassy, feisty, ginger-haired leader of a gang of orphanage-dodging pickpockets, The Sackville Street Spooks (think Fagin’s gang from Oliver Twist, but without Fagin), and the former being the very middle-class son of a Dublin Castle civil servant, hailing from leafy Clontarf and with aspirations to be a writer.
In the books Bram skips school and sets off for the big smoke, seeking adventure and things to write about. He falls in with Molly’s gang and the two kids, as different as chalk and cheese, become best pals and have adventures that bring them around (and sometimes underneath) some of Victorian Dublin’s best-known landmarks and creepiest cobblestoned corners – from the Dead Zoo to Nelson’s Pillar, and from Trinity College’s Long Room Library to the crypt of St Michan’s Church – meeting characters along the way that will inspire Bram to write his greatest works. The books explore the differences between Molly’s world of hand-to-mouth poverty in which her and The Spooks have to steal to eat and are always one step away from the workhouse, and Bram’s privileged lifestyle where the pantry is always full and an arched eyebrow and cultured accent will open almost any door.
The books have been a joy to research for – as Bram is a real-life person, I try to be faithful to the known facts of his childhood, and a good day’s stomping around Dublin always makes me happy – and have been an absolute delight to write.
I’m pretty sure Nanny Gigg would have loved them!
Molly Malone & Bram Stoker in The Sackville Street Caper and the new book in the series, Double Trouble at the Dead Zoo, are both out now from The O’Brien Press. Molly & Bram will return for more adventures in 2024.
