‘Anybody who finishes a novel deserves praise and attention’

After what seemed like a dream job in the ‘Sunday Tribune’, Deirdre Purcell left to pursue fiction writing. Sue Leonard sits down to chat with her follwoing the launch of her 14th novel. 

Marian Lescher, the lead character in Deirdre Purcell’s new novel, is a journalist. A freelancer, she is delighted when she’s offered a job on a start-up magazine. She has to interview someone every week, and produce a 4,000-word profile. But she must approach the most well-known people possible.

This sounds, to me, like a dream job. And judging from the way Deirdre’s grey eyes light up when we discuss it over lunch in a hotel, it’s clear that she thinks so too. Back in the mid1980s, when Vincent Browne restarted the Sunday Tribune, that is precisely what she was doing.