Book interview: How Aussie in exile JR Thorp brings Lear’s wife back to life in first book

Author Jennifer Thorp — aka JR Thorp — wrote part of her first novel in the aptly named Bookshelf cafe in Cork.

Jennifer Thorp — aka JR Thorp. Picture: Cathal Noonan

ANY reader or contributor to the Irish Examiner Books section would probably consider themselves a word buff, but when author JR Thorp introduced herself as a writer and librettist she sensed the tangible pause. “I write lyrics for operas; I know, it’s a confusing bio as no one seems to know what the word means.”

An Australian living in Cork city, author Jennifer states: “I studied creative writing in Oxford. My husband’s friend, composer Toby Young, complained of a commission to be accompanied by lyrics. My husband said — ‘My wife — she can write lyrics!’ That’s how the opera work started.”