Popular acclaim greets priest’s new novel

A new novel written by a Dublin priest has received rave reviews in two national newspapers and hit the top ten sellers in major bookstores.

Leaving Ardglass is the third novel by Fr William King, Corpus Christi Church, Griffith Avenue, who is parish priest of Drumcondra..

Irish Independent  literary editor John Boland praised his “eye for the telling detail”, while Irish Times reviewer Derek Hand said it was “a plot-driven novel: well paced and keeps the reader's interest and attention”.

Kerry born Fr King told ciNews that he graduated in English and took to creative writing after going back to college to study for an MA in English.

“I have been writing ever since; I write early in the morning, I get about two hours in, not every day but when I’m getting to grips with a book, it has to be every day,” he explained.

“It’s done by 9.30, so I go over to the Church, have morning prayers and 10 o’clock Mass.”

Leaving Ardglass, he said, ’is set to a large extent in the wave of emigration to England in the 1950s.

“It revolves around the fortunes of two brothers, one of whom becomes a priest and vicar general and has high prospects of becoming a bishop in a fictitious diocese called Oriel”.

“The other brother is called MJ and goes to England, where he makes a fortune in Kilburn and Cricklewood in the building business”.

The novel describes “all the rough difficult conditions of men climbing into the wagons at half past six to work on the buildings,” Fr King continues.

“Eventually the builder brother comes back to Ireland and becomes a developer and the book tells what happens his family”.

He said his book is “a tale of a family and of Irish social history in the last fifty years, including what has happened in the Church in the 80s and 90s and the Celtic Tiger and how people are affected by it. It names the greed that is inherent in every human being”.

Fr King said he had been lucky in his dealings with publishers and had not suffered too much from discouraging ‘rejection slips’.

“My agent, Jonathan Williams, knows where to situate a book and will take it around, almost like selling calves at a market”.

“He also advises. In the case of Leaving Ardglass, I had 60,000 words written and he said it was an absorbing story, but I needed to write another 40,000 words!”

Fr King, who was born in Kilflynn, Co. Kerry, in 1945, studied at UCD and Holy Cross College, Clonliffe.  His previous novels were The Strangled Impulse (1997) and Swansong (2001).

Leaving Ardglass by William King is published by Lilliput Press at €12.99.