Daniel McInerny

Tom Stoppard’s “The Hard Problem,” Kenneth Branagh’s “Cinderella,” Eddie Redmayne’s Stephen Hawking, Jeers for “Wolf Hall” but Cheers for “Foyle’s War”

Sun, 22 Mar 2015 22:06:27 +0000

As boulevardier of the arts, it is my pleasant duty to share with you several items that have caught my eye of late… I haven’t seen it. I haven’t even read it. But Tom Stoppard’s new play, The Hard Problem, now playing at the National Theatre in London, has already sparked my interest more than any [...]

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Don’t Just Pick Yourself, Pick Your Tradition

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 00:01:42 +0000

What follows are the notes of a talk I gave recently to a group of writers at Water Street Studio in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The talk was entitled, “2015–The Year of the Artists-as-Entrepreneur,” but on reflection I might better call it, with apologies to Seth Godin, “Don’t Just Pick Yourself, Pick Your Tradition.” I’m going to [...]

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Learning from Evelyn Waugh’s “Decline and Fall”

Sun, 01 Feb 2015 16:53:02 +0000

Our work–our life–is the mash-up of our influences. One of the chief influences upon my comic novel, High Concepts: A Hollywood Nightmare, was Evelyn Waugh’s first and brilliantly funny comic novel, Decline and Fall. I don’t know if Decline and Fall is much read today, but it is hard for me to think of a [...]

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Join Me for Conversation on the Craft of Storytelling

Fri, 30 Jan 2015 22:47:15 +0000

Imagine this. A fresh cup of hot coffee or your favorite tea (I’m an Irish Breakfast man in the morning, Earl Grey in the afternoon), and you and I sitting for a comfortable spell having a good auld natter about things literary. No big agenda. Just the pleasure of talk about our favorite books and [...]

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The Rhetoric of Fiction

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 19:21:42 +0000

To what extent can fiction–meaning that to include all forms of storytelling–purge itself of all rhetoric? By rhetoric I mean techniques and devices by which the author attempts to persuade us to think and feel about the story in a particular way. The question is, is it possible for an author to eschew all rhetoric [...]

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Brief and Sundry Thoughts on John Michael McDonagh’s “Calvary”

Wed, 21 Jan 2015 21:08:30 +0000

(Note: I won’t sum up the plot. For that, and more, see Steven Greydanus’s and Lauren Ely‘s excellent reviews of the film.) I saw Calvary in the same week that I saw When The Game Stands Tall. Which manifested the stark and depressing contrast between the genre of well-meaning, cloyingly inspirational faith-based movies and those rare [...]

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The Flashforward in Muriel Spark’s “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”

Sun, 18 Jan 2015 20:02:39 +0000

The flashback we’re familiar with. But the flashforward? Consider the following passages from Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: “You did well,” said Miss Brodie to the class, when Miss Mackay had gone, “not to answer the question put to you. It is well, when in difficulties, to say never a word, neither [...]

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Genre Fiction vs. Literary Fiction: An Unnecessary Culture-Clash

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 19:32:27 +0000

In this interview Ian McEwan did for the London Telegraph back in May 2013, an interview focusing on McEwan’s espionage novel, Sweet Tooth, I was struck by the following, rather refreshing remarks McEwan made about the relationship between genre fiction and literary fiction: “McEwan says he is not bothered that Sweet Tooth might be categorised [...]

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Am I Charlie?

Thu, 15 Jan 2015 19:35:57 +0000

Is there a place for satire within a society and, if so, what (if any) are its limits? The recent terrorist attack in Paris on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical weekly magazine, have forced these questions upon everyone, including Muslim cartoonists. I find myself thinking about them both as a citizen of [...]

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Should An Author Judge His Characters?

Wed, 14 Jan 2015 19:33:58 +0000

Should an author of fiction or drama judge his characters? Academy Award-winning screenwriter and creator of Downton Abbey Julian Fellowes, in a reflection upon his literary debt to Edith Wharton, registered this answer to the question: “It is quite true that Edith Wharton has been a tremendous influence on me and on my writing although [...]

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