Lisa McInerney Q&A: ‘Heresies was a landscape. Miracles is a portrait’

Last night I was Lisa McInerney’s launch in Dublin. My interview with her appeared in The Irish Times yesterday – you can read it here.

Here’s a snippet…

The Blood Miracles is a follow-up to The Glorious Heresies. It was always your intention to write a trilogy.
Yeah, I think it was. It felt to me very early on like each should be part of a larger story. I had in my head that very famous hendiatris “sex, drugs, rock and roll”. “Three words, one idea” became “three novels, one broader story”. Heresies was sex, Miracles is drugs . . . which leaves me with a rousing symphonic epic to write for the closer. Each novel works on its own too, I think, so I think it will be more of a set than a trilogy.

You had this overview in mind but how much of the story did you have before you began writing The Blood Miracles?
Quite a bit, which isn’t usual for me. I knew the nuts and bolts of Miracles from the beginning, whereas with Heresies, I knew where it started and where it would end but I hadn’t a clue how I was going to get from one to the other. Miracles came together very differently. But that said, I think it’s more plot-centric than Heresies. It might show in the reading that I knew where I was going with it.

Lisa McInerney last night