PATRICK FREYNE WRITING EXCLUSIVELY FOR KENNYS
ON EXPERTS IN A DYING FIELD
Last year I started writing a novel about a band but ended up writing a novel about Dublin and creativity and aging and loss by mistake. Experts in a Dying Field is, on the surface, the story of the Heathens, who were the 1000th best band of all time (by their own estimation which is the only one that counts when you’re in a minor band and you’ve barely sold any records). Their singer Joss Boland died in a van crash and twenty years later the other Heathens - Snoopy, Maggie and Burton – are reunited in Dublin and are reckoning with what happened to them.
I was always more interested in bands than in singers. I was obsessed with, at different times, the Monkees, the Electric Mayhem, the Beatles, Dire Straits, Def Leppard, the Bangles, the Pixies, The Cure, The Bad Seeds and Crass (don’t judge me for any of this), not just the music but the personality dynamics and the sound they made together and what it all meant. Because bands always mean something. Bands are Utopian projects really. There are all sorts of hopes and dreams and possibilities wrapped up in them. The bands themselves don’t even have to be any good.
I was also more interested in multi-voice novels than those that come from the perspective of one person. Multi-voice novels make me feel less lonely, somehow. So there are a lot of voices in this book and as I wrote it, I realized it wasn’t really about a band at all. It was a story about friendship and intergenerational trauma and grief and ambition and failure and lost children and cold and distant parents and byzantine investment schemes and addiction and recovery and hope and God and Tarot cards and Dublin and all the various layers of reality that come with Dublin (I love that city). And like the real Dublin, this one features a bit of magic and mystery around its edges. Oh, and there’s a fox in it. And a robot. And an abstract artist. And a priest. And a mysterious businessman.
I really enjoyed writing Experts in a Dying Field. And I hope that when you read it, you’ll find some joy and sadness and comfort in it. Maybe you’ll start a band. Or maybe you’ll start a byzantine investment scheme. I don’t mind. Whatever you do, I hope it makes you happy.
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