This article is from page 34 of the 2011-06-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 34 JPG
A KILRUSH pensioner, who has just published his first novel at the ripe old age of 77, says he already has plans for a book of poetry and a second novel…and maybe even a film.
Jim Counihan, who is this week getting ready to officially launch his psychological thriller, To Ba la nce The Scales , says his love of books and writing came from his father, who bought him a copy of Moby Dick in Kilkee in the late 1940s.
Jim left Kilrush as a 17-year-old in 1951 and spent the next four decades working in England and Wales. He began to write in the 1980s but it wasn’t until after his retirement, in the early 1990s, that he turned his attention to fulfilling a life-long ambition and finishing his first novel.
However, it wasn’t until he returned home almost a decade ago that he decided that the time had come to get his work published.
“I was going through a divorce in the mid-1980s and because of that I felt like I needed to do something new, so I took up writing classes. I finished writing the story while I was living down in Wales in 1997 but it wasn’t until I returned home that I edited it and decided to try and get it published,” he said. “It was on my mind for years and years to finish the book and that is why I put the effort in over the last few years. It was a huge effort over the last two or three years to edit and re-edit the book but it was worth it to finally get it finished. “I remember when I was a kid my father brought me back two books from Kilkee Moby Dick and The Ma n in the Iron Ma sk . After that I just read and read everything I could get my hands on.” The book tells the story of a man living on the west coast of Ireland. The man becomes engaged to a redheaded marine biologist who disappears and the investigation into her disappearance uncovers a large and complex web of intrigue.
“It is a psychological thriller because the characters and their personalities are just as important as the plot and what is happening next. It is quite a complex story as well – so if you miss anything in the beginning you could get lost pretty quickly,” he continued.
“Over the last few years, I have written 40 or 50 poems and I am going to work on getting them published. In the story itself, there is a four or five page epilogue. I wrote that to give me some scope to go on and do a sequel in the future. I have also been told that the book itself might make a good film, because the writing is so visual. So we’ll have to see what happens with that. Writing is great escapism for me, there is a huge amount of work in it but I love it.”
The book is available to buy online at www.choicepublishing.ie.