Colm Tóibín believes that writers must ‘imagine evil’

Colm Tóibín’s new work, The News from Dublin, puts the reader in the heads of many different types of people: a grieving lover, a bereaved mother, a desperate brother — and an Irish teacher who just got out of prison for child sexual abuse.

It may seem strange to write a story from the point of view of a pedophile, but the Irish writer keeps poet Robert Duncan’s advice in mind: “As writers,” Tóibín paraphrases, “it’s our task to imagine evil.”

“I'm trying to draw on a character who has not much been imagined, to see what could be done about that,” he explains to Q’s Tom Power. “If you think of somebody writing a novel from the point of view of a murderer, it's funny, we don't have any problem with that… But [if I said], ‘Here's a really good story, it is told from the point of view of the pedophile,’ it's not something that is in our literature very much.”

The story about the abusive teacher came to Tóibín when he saw an image in his head of a man trying to rent a city bike in Barcelona using a credit card.

“It’s evil presented as though it's nothing much. He's worried about everything. Should he go to the cinema? What restaurant should he go to?” he says. “And all these things, I'm trying to make them real. I’m trying to anchor them in detail.”

The story’s details show how “reviled” and “alone” the Irish teacher is. His family writes him a letter to tell him to find a burial plot far away from them. The bartender won’t invite him for Christmas. His lawyer doesn’t want to see him outside of his office.

“I'm not doing this for any political reason or moral reason, just that this is an interesting story from my point of view,” Tóibín says. “What I'm trying to work out is some sort of set of complexity within a character that for the reader, as you turn the pages — ‘I don't know what to feel about this.’ That’s what I’m working towards.”

Tóibín is no stranger to writing about darkness. His most famous novels — Brooklyn, Nora Webster and The Blackwater Lightship — have dealt with death and grief, something the author experienced at 12-years-old when his father passed away.

Tóibín has also written about his own brush with death in his essay, Cancer: My Part in its Downfall. He originally thought he would never write about his cancer diagnosis — until another image struck him.

“The first sentence came into my mind and it was: ‘It all started with my balls,’ because I had testicular cancer. And once I got that … I had a beginning,” he says. “I didn't want to write a morose piece which wouldn't have any life in it. But once I got to think about my balls, then some of the experiences were really genuinely funny.”

Listen to the full interview with Colm Tóibín to hear about his new short story collection, his less-than-red-carpet treatment at the Oscars, and what inspires his writing.

Colm Tóibín’s new short story collection, The News from Dublin, is out now.

Q with Tom Power

Interview with Colm Tóibín produced by Ben Edwards.