ARTS ‘Ghost Moth’ author to read at Rolling Sun Book Festival

READING ?Michèle Forbes, author of the acclaimed ‘Ghost Moth’.

‘Ghost Moth’ author to read at Rolling Sun Book Festival


Debut novel highly praised

Áine Ryan

I’M sure the serendipity wouldn’t be lost on the master novelist himself, John Banville. The upcoming Rolling Sun Book Festival, to which yours truly is attached, invited Mr Banville to participate in this year’s shindig but due to a heavy schedule, he declined; graciously, of course.
However, that forced us back to the drawing board where we discovered author, Michèle Forbes, and her beautiful debut novel, ‘Ghost Moth’. And there on the inside page is a paean from Banville, which states: “An impressive debut by a writer who is not afraid to address the so-called ordinary lives of real human beings. We shall be hearing a great deal more from Michele Forbes.”
Indeed, praise for Ms Forbes, a native of Belfast who now lives in Dublin, is almost as lyrical as her beautifully crafted novel about love and loss, memories and mystical experiences as Northern Ireland trundles towards the brink of war.
The novel opens during the hot summer of 1969, as political tensions rise and Katherine Bedford, a former actress, and her fire-fighter husband, George, struggle to keep buried secrets and powerful memories from destroying their marriage. But their indomitable love for their children and the healing effects of forgiveness help them survive, as the spectre of the Ghost Moth hovers close by.   
A review by The Spectator explains the symbolism of the title, noting that it ‘flutters through the novel, alighting on various pages’. It refers to Katharine’s explanation to her daughter: “Some people believed that ghost moths were the souls of the dead waiting to be caught.”
The sparse lyricism of the opening lines creates a sense of quiet foreboding, that transpires to come from a past time. “The seal appears from nowhere, an instant immutable presence in the sea – although he must have been silently swimming below the surface for some time without her knowing … Battle-scarred, his snout slopes to an ugly dull point where his long wiry whiskers afford him the seductive familiarity of a family dog. But it’s his eyes – the eyes of this wild animal – that terrify Katherine the most; huge, opaque, and overbold, they hold on her like the lustrous black-egged eyes of a ruined man.”

Reading
THE author, Michèle Forbes, will read from her novel at the upcoming Rolling Sun Book Festival. At an 'On the Couch’ event on the afternoon of Saturday, November 15, entitled ‘Between The Lines’, she will shoot the breeze with her friend, Hilary Fannin, Irish Times columnist, and broadcaster and writer Rachael English.

Reader offer
Seamus Duffy’s Bookshop and McLoughlins of Westport are offering a special price for the Michèle Forbes’s ‘Ghost Moth’ (€7.99) for readers of The Mayo News who present a copy of this article when purchasing the book. To hear the author read an excerpt from the book, go to www.micheleforbesauthor.com.