The Sigla Blog

MJ Hyland was born to Irish parents who lived a somewhat nomadic existence in the face of family problems and her father’s search for work. Her family settle in Ballymun flats and Tallaght, before moving to Australia where Hyland later became a lawyer. Although she has published several short stories and a powerful essay about her father ‘My Father the Armed Robber’, How the Light Gets In is her first novel. In it, she brilliantly deconstructs the bildungsroman through the brazen, intellectually slick Lou Connor, an Australian teenager cast adrift in America having finally escaped the rabble of her own family. In search of herself and the acceptance she never got at home, she walks a dangerous line of self-destruction and deceit. On a recent visit to Dublin, Sinéad Gleeson caught up with MJ Hyland and asked her about her life and work.

Why did you pick a teenage girl as the protagonist in this novel?
I didn’t set out to write about a teenage girl, it was mostly an accident. Lou started out as a male character and went through several incarnations. I had written a short story called ‘In a Prison for Wayward Exchange Students’ and the main character was a boy. Lou then grew out of that story because I wanted to tell the story of one of the exchange students and how he or she ended up in this prison.

In a recent interview you said that you didn’t remember a lot about your teenage years, is the book an attempt to retrieve some of those memories?
It’s quite paradoxical that I, of all people, should have written a book with a teenage protagonist. Many people presume that because I’ve written a book about a teenager that my own teenage memories must be vivid. On the contrary, I can’t recall in any detail a single episode from my teens - obviously I can remember big, or significant events - but in terms of continuity and detail, I have quite patchy memories. The book is, perhaps, my way of recreating the time in my life that’s most fuzzy for me. It’s the same with childhood, which is something else I write about. I’m interested in a child’s voice, but not in a literal way; in an almost surreal, peculiar way.

Given Lou’s family background in the novel is it no surprise that she is a somewhat damaged sort of person? Her intelligence and zest for life in the book offer a lot of hope too but is this the case?
Lou is disassociative and she suffers from all sorts of unnamed conditions. She’s detached from her experiences and herself and yet is intensely self-conscious and aware;a bundle of contradictions. I think the book is written out of my stern belief that despite growing up in chaos and booklessness, if a child has a mind, she or he can escape a life of stupidity. That’s not always the case, and in writing about Lou, who is preternaturally intelligent iI set it up so that people would (and do) find her compelling and are probably more willing to help; therein lies my reluctance to say that all people can escape an unpleasant destiny In my case? I had a ruthless determination and an obscene amount of luck. I was rescued in my late adolescence and in my twenties, by not one, but several extraordinary people.

Your background is like Lou’s in that there was little intellectual encouragement. In your case, you’ve succeeded by being a lawyer and writer, where did you get your drive and self-belief?
I got plenty of encouragement from my mother, but not much in the way of healthy example. So how did I end up as I am? It’s a conundrum; I don’t think I’ll ever know. We’re all a chemical soup and aside from the luck I talked about earlier, I guess I have a self-belief that’s got nothing to do with the example set by anyone in my immediate family. That said, I had significant contact with my mother’s extended family when I was growing and they had a huge impact on me..

For someone who hasn’t had a lot of security in your life, being a writer is not exactly the most secure choice. Is there something in you that rebels against the notion of security, even a little bit?
Of course. But I don’t know if that is an innate disposition of mine; that I’m nomadic, or whether I was trained to be so by living a peripatetic life. I may be addicted to moving around and I suppose I tend not to stay in the one place for long. The idea of one job or doing one thing for a long time is kind of repugnant to me.

One of your short stories ‘My Father’s Pajamas’ deals with your father’s alcoholism, will there come a time when you won’t want to write about the personal aspects of your own life growing up?
That story is not autobiographical. Not in the least. My God. Had my father been as charming and as harmless as the man in that story.far from it. Of course, I might not have written that story had my father not been a drunk..but that’s getting into silly territory, A writer can write about whatever his imagination allows him to write about. Really, I don’t regard myself as ever having been an autobiographical writer and it was a difficult decision for me to talk about my past in the non-fiction pieces commissioned by the London Review of Books and so on. How that came about was strange, unexpected: I had been asked to write a piece about fathers in fiction as part of a discussion panel I was taking part in at a literary festival. I was asked then to write a longer piece on the same topic and it was published in the London Review of Books. I suppose it took me a long time to decide to write about this, I knew it would be difficult to stop once I did. But I think enough is enough and I will probably stop now.

The essay ‘My Father the Armed Robbery’ is so raw and powerful to read but it’s also done in a readable, unembellished way that manages to have humour too - that’s hard to do.
I would never take advice from anyone who indulges in moaning self-pity. If someone can talk about things like this in a measured way, it’s interesting to read. I think one of the best examples of this is Mikhael Gilmore. He wrote a piece about his brother Gary [a notorious killer who was executed in the US] in Granta and his writing proved that it could be done. For me, it seemed (although of course, it’s not true) as though Gilmore’s piece was a revelation: the first time someone intelligent had written without sobbing about growing up a criminal environment . It made me think that I could do it and that I wasn’t the only one who had grown up with family chaos.

Amid all the chaos of your family life and moving around, how did you finally start writing?
I had a broken education and did not spend any more than 2 years in any one school, and so it’s a miracle I even finished. How I manged to get into law school is a long story, but it had a great deal to do with the fact that I moved out of home just in time. By the time I started to work as a lawyer I had been writing for several years. When I was 7 or 8 I used to write poems and terrible little stories. I suppose I was always lucky with English teachers who early on noticed that I had an interest in words and writing. My first short story was published when I was 18 but then I took a long break from it and didn’t write again in any serious way until I was 23.

How The Light Gets In has been compared to cult books with teen protagonists like JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and it made me think of SE Hinton’s The Outsiders - how do you feel about that?
I’m flattered obviously by those comparisons, but I know they’re probably more about PR and marketing than anything else. Comparisons like this also make me nervous because The Catcher in the Rye>/i> is a masterpiece - to be compared to it is likely to mean people are disappointed when they read my book. S.E. Hinton I’m more comfortable with.

Finally, what writers do you most admire?
JM Coetzee, Paul Auster, Ian McEwan - until Atonement anyway - but his early books are great, like Enduring Love and The Cement Garden had a big influence on me. And I like Lorrie Moore very much. She’s a real writer’s writer. I also really like an American writer called Beth Nugent. Apart from that I love Russian Literature - give me the Russians any day.

Review: How The Light Gets In