"Because I haven't lived there for 30 years, people don't really associate me with Ireland," Graham Norton told Ray D'Arcy speaking about his new book 'A Keeper', which is very much an Irish tale. "That was kind of the point," he explained. Graham wanted to create a remove between his persona and his writing and so he set a good chunk of the book in 1970's Ireland. "Equally they say write about what you know," he said, "So that's kind of where I went!"
A good story is what Graham was after when writing his second book and we, as Irish people love the good story, as he pointed out. The genesis of this plot came from a true story that his mother told him back in the 1970's.
"Someone… replied to a lonely hearts ad, which happens in the book, and she's corresponding with this farmer and they're getting on great guns and then there's a twist that happens in the book where the letters aren't all they seem and that is true. That did happen and when she told me that I thought, oh, I'm having that, that's very good so I kind of stored it away like a little story squirrel."
Click here to listen to Ray’s chat with Graham.