Culture That Made Me: John Boyne picks his touchstones
John Boyne's latest book is All The Broken Places. (Picture: Chris Close)
John Boyne, 51, grew up in Sandyford, Dublin. In 2000, The Thief of Time hit the bookshelves, one of 21 books he has published. The film adaptation of his award-winning novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was released in 2008. In 2019, his house in Rathfarnham, Dublin won Celebrity Home of the Year, his “proudest achievement to date”. All The Broken Places, his latest young adult novel, is published by Doubleday.
I started reading John Irving in my mid-teens. I loved his almost Dickensian approach, starting with a boy’s birth, following him through his life.
I could relate to many of the characters in his books. He writes so much about “sexual misfits”. As a teenager, I felt like a sexual misfit.
The Cider House Rules has a very political edge to it because it's about abortion, but – even though John is a staunch supporter of abortion rights – he creates a central character in Homer Wells, who does not have that same feeling. It’s interesting for a writer to challenge themselves. That started my obsession with John Irving's novels.
The Go-Between by LP Hartley is probably my favourite novel of all time. It’s about this elderly man. He looks back to a moment when he was 12.
He went to his posh friend’s house for the summer. He falls in love with the friend’s older sister. It’s his first experience of a crush, desire, romance. He thinks she is into him.
Actually, she's using him as a go-between, sending letters to the farmer next door. The discovery of this traumatises his life.
It's a wonderful novel about first love and heartbreak that you can never recover from. I've written quite a few novels with an elderly narrator looking back on a moment that has badly affected their futures, a theme very influenced by The Go-Between.
My favourite musician – a love that started when I was about 13 – is Kate Bush. I’ve been a Kate Bush obsessive nearly my whole life.
So is my friend David Mitchell. We compete to see who's the biggest fan.
I know her albums inside-out. She's a storyteller. She creates characters that could be characters in novels. She's original in her musicianship and her control of her work.
She wrote classic songs like The Man With the Child in His Eyes when apparently she was 13.
She performed in London eight years ago. She hadn't done any concerts since 1979. I got there for the opening night. I was in second row.
She had almost seemed like a mythological figure to me – somebody not in the world, and there she was on stage before me. I couldn't believe it. It was one of the best nights of my life.
With John Banville’s novels you know two things.
One, that you’ll be stunned by the writing. He writes beautifully, coming up with unique language and images that move you like poetry does.
Second, he’s a great storyteller. He writes novels that you want to know how they turn out, about characters whose life experiences you want to see resolved in some way.
My favourite novel of his is Ancient Light. It’s about a love affair between a younger boy and an older woman.
Again that theme in novels I enjoy –loss of innocence, heartbreak and the damage that can be done to young people in first experiences of love. It’s the most beautiful novel.
The Folio Society has been running for about a century. It’s based in London. They produce beautiful, illustrated editions of classic novels in slipcases.
If, say, you want to read Anna Karenina. Buy the Folio Society edition. The book will be extraordinary – the paper, the type, the illustrations. The whole reading experience will be elevated.
They produce a new set of books two or three times a year. I've been addicted to collecting them for years. I bought Frankenstein the other day. I’ve never read it before. It's a beautiful way to read it.
As a kid, the TV show I loved the most was Fame. I was obsessed with Fame when I was about 10. I had all the records and the posters.
My favourite character was Danny, the aspiring comedian. It was a great show.
My favourite ever TV show is The West Wing. I could quote its episodes – I've watched them so many times.
It's a comfort view now for me – I know the characters so well. I love the idealism in it. Martin Sheen as the president is so great.
The writing is amazing. I love American political shows or movies and it educates you on American politics and the curiosities of it, and the dynamic between the Republicans and the Democrats.
It came from the start of the 2000s so it doesn't reflect the craziness of American politics now. It almost harks back to “a kinder, gentler nation”, to quote George Bush Sr..
My favourite filmmaker is Woody Allen. I've always loved his movies. Arguably, there isn’t a filmmaker alive as prolific.
Even his less good films are still better than most people’s films but his great films are as good as ever has been made. They're funny. They're evocative of the human experience.
He writes great female characters which you don't always see in cinema; it’s the reason why so many actresses have won Oscars for being in his movies, because he gives them wonderful parts. I can go back to his movies time and again and still find something new in them.
A film I adore is The Talented Mr. Ripley by Anthony Minghella, which is based on the first of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels.
I love the antihero in it, the confused sexuality between Tom Ripley and Dickie Greenleaf. The beauty of the Italian Riviera during the 1950s. It's a stunning film to watch.
It's incredibly tense and Matt Damon's performance as Tom Ripley is at times heart-breaking, at times chilling. Tom Ripley is such a fascinating character.
I love Australia. I go every year. Steve Kalcev is a Macedonian-born Australian artist. He died last year. I have three of his paintings in my house.
He makes these beautiful, large, impressionistic paintings that are very tactile. There's all these chippings in them and little cuts.
The images almost comes off the canvas. They reflect a lot of Aboriginal influences. They become very interesting to stare at.
You can see different things in them all the time. You can lose yourself in them in a hypnotic way.
