Maggie O’Farrell: 'We've got to rebuild that feeling of security for our children'

After taking the book world by storm with her Hamnet novel, Maggie O'Farrell has written a children's book. Inspired by stories from her father, it's also linked to the need to get kids back on track after the trials of the pandemic 

Maggie O'Farrell has published  The Boy Who Lost His Spark . Picture: Sophie Davidson

It’s clear that Maggie O’Farrell is not one to feel sorry for herself. The writer is at the tail end of her third bout of Covid with a lingering cough but she says she’s fine, that it sounds worse than it is. Her encounters with the dreaded virus certainly haven’t interfered much with her productivity.

The Marriage Portrait, her eagerly awaited follow-up to the acclaimed Hamnet, hit the shelves in August, and hot on its heels is The Boy Who Lost his Spark, her second children’s book. 

It tells the story of Jem, who struggles to adjust when his family moves to a small town. When strange things start happening, his sister tries to convince him it is the work of an ancient creature called the ‘nouka’. For O’Farrell, Jem represents how people have struggled amid the chaos and uncertainty of the pandemic.

“I think we have all lost our spark a little bit in the last couple of years. I thought of this boy who needs something to get him back on track, it seemed like the right story to tell at this moment,” she says.

O’Farrell was born in Coleraine, Co Derry, and now lives in Scotland. She got the idea of the nouka from the stories told by her Dubliner father when she was growing up.

“Actually, the nouka is a kind of volcano-dwelling beastie based on the mischievous spirit of the púca. But you can’t put the syllable poo in a children’s book so I had to rename him,” she laughs.

The cover of The Boy Who Lost His Spark, by Maggie O'Farrell. 

“The nouka is a kind of volcano-dwelling beastie. When I was young, my Dad would only ever read Irish myths and legends to us — we would beg him to read us Pippi Longstocking or Beatrix Potter. It used to really annoy us but actually those stories just really soaked in… they are just part of my blood, DNA and bone now.

“There is something in those Irish myths about the marrying of the landscape with the supernatural world and all of those permeable barriers that is particularly seductive for me in terms of narrative.”

O’Farrell’s previous book for children, Where Snow Angels Go, was inspired by a story she would tell to comfort her daughter, who was often hospitalised with severe allergies. When writing The Boy Who Lost His Spark, she was very aware of the impact the pandemic had on younger people, her own three included.

“It manifested in my children as a loss of joy, a loss of curiosity about life and a fearfulness. 

"They had all lost their spark, they were so frightened. Even just the idea of your school closing and not being able to see your pals was scary, let alone this deadly disease that was stalking us all.”

O’Farrell says we shouldn’t underestimate the effect the pandemic had, particularly on some children. 

“I just wanted to write a book which was about finding that spark again and how important it is to acknowledge it, to say ‘yes, I’m feeling miserable’. 

"The only way we can get through these challenges is to share it with other people, to keep talking about it, not to bottle it up. We have got to try and rebuild that self-assurance and that feeling of security for our children as best we can.”

For O’Farrell, the therapeutic power of stories can never be underestimated.

“As a parent, I’ve really noticed that narrative is a human need. We need it like we need oxygen and the sun. The way you can help a child metabolise something they find difficult to comprehend or understand is by telling a story about it, by transferring it into metaphor. Then they are already on the path to comprehension and healing.”

O’Farrell says that writing children’s stories and adult fiction uses ‘completely different muscles’. 

She particularly enjoys the collaborative element of writing picture books, working with the illustrator Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini.

“The most important thing for me about my children’s books is that they work orally. So I read them aloud to myself, I read them to my kids and I record myself reading them, which of course is so different from the way you construct a full-length novel.”

O’Farrell’s work is highly regarded and she has built up an impressive back catalogue. However, Hamnet brought her to another level of success and recognition. 

The irony of a book about Shakespeare’s son dying in the Plague being published in March 2020 was lost on no-one. While the overwhelming response to the book took O’Farrell by surprise, the pandemic had a somewhat tempering effect.

“In a way, I was very insulated from what happened with Hamnet, it all happened at arm’s length. I was doing Zoom events and everything was so strange. 

"Suddenly, I was home-schooling two children, so whatever was happening with Hamnet was a drop in the ocean of strangeness, to be honest. It is always going to be a wonderful memory, that so many people responded to that book.”

O’Farrell marked a milestone birthday earlier this year, turning 50. She has previously said that she has always felt her life is a bonus, given that she almost died when she contracted encephalitis as an eight-year-old, something which still affects her health. 

She explored this and her other brushes with death in her profoundly affecting book I Am, I Am, I Am. While Hamnet was obviously a career high, she doesn’t see life in terms of reaching any kind of summit.

“I don’t ever want to feel that I have arrived somewhere or that I’ve done it all because I think that would be the point where I would stop writing. 

"I want to watch my children grow up, the adults they become and their children, and I want to write more books, there is loads still to be done.”

As well as books to write, there are also books to read. O’Farrell is known to be a voracious reader — when she appeared on Desert Island Discs, it was revealed that she reads four novels a week. I ask her how she manages it and her reply perfectly illustrates her positive approach to life.

“Well, I’ll tell you. It’s because I have terrible insomnia. I think the only upside to insomnia is that you get a lot of reading done. 

"I reread all of Claire Keegan’s short stories last night, both collections. You see, it’s not a hardship really, not at all, far from it.”

• The Boy Who Lost His Spark, by Maggie O’Farrell, illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini, published by Walker Books, is out now