Beginner’s Pluck: Author of 'The Coast Road' Alan Murrin

Alan Murrin: 'It took four years to finish the book.'

THE youngest of five children, Alan always knew he wanted to be a writer.

“I was a precocious kid,” he says. “I read Roald Dahl, and thought, ‘I could do that!’” He wrote stories, continuing the things he watched on television, but at 9 or 10, music took over.

“I thought I could be a concert pianist,” he says. “I went to boarding school in Dublin so that I could get lessons from John O’Connor. But at 16, I realised I didn’t have the drive or the energy. That’s when I rediscovered writing.” 

After graduating in 2006, Alan moved to London to write.

“But I couldn’t make any money.”

He worked in art galleries, moving from reception, through gallery assistant, to in-house press and communications.

“I ended up in arts in a PR Agency, but I soon quit and worked in a bookshop instead. I wrote in my spare time.”

Who is Alan Murrin?

Date of birth: 1984 in Donegal.

Education: Castleknock College in Dublin; Trinity College, Dublin, English. “I studied at the University of East Anglia for my Erasmus. The course included creative writing.” 2016, University of East Anglia, MA in creative writing.

Alan started his debut novel in November 2018.

“I sat down with a sense of purpose. I put in the hours and had a draft in four months. It took four years to finish the book.”

Home: Berlin.

Family: Parents and four siblings. “And some very good friends.”

The day job: Full-time writer. “But I was working as a journalist, teaching English, and doing some editing.”

In another life: “The life of a pianist or dancer that requires discipline and dedications holds great romantic appeal.”

Favourite writers: William Trevor; Elizabeth Strout; Anne Enright; Colm Tóibín; Alice Munro; Elizabeth Bowen.

Second book: “It’s a first-person narrative set in a different time, and location.”

Top tip: “Don’t deal too much in introspection. Dramatise everything.”

Website: www.alanmurrin.com

The debut

The Coast Road, Bloomsbury Circus: €19.94. Kindle: €8.50.

This outstanding novel, set in a coastal village in 1994, deals with difficult marriages on the cusp of the divorce referendum. Murrin gets into the mind of women better than any male writer since the late Brian Moore.

The Verdict: If you read just one book all year, make it this one.