Blindboy meets Donal Ryan on new episode of podcast

“You look like Eminem”, Blindboy Boatclub told Donal Ryan during a recent show.

The acclaimed author, who hails from Nenagh, was interviewed by the podcaster a couple of months ago - and the episode was finally released last week.

The interviewer started off strong as he compared Donal to Eminem.

“You look like Eminem. You do, you have the same eyes as him. Has anyone ever said that?,” Blindboy inquired.

“No, but I'm delighted. I'm really thrilled to hear that,” laughed Donal.

The pair chatted about the fashion of the post-pandemic era.

“I got a really cryptic text off my friend Steve today saying ‘Man, don’t wear bootcut jeans tonight and brown shoes, whatever you do’,” said Donal.

An advice he followed as Blindboy noted the novelist was wearing a “very Tipperary look”.

“You're not wearing bootcut jeans. They're the skinny ones. That's how you know you're from Nenagh. That's a very Tipperary look, though,” Blindboy pointed.

The novelist said he was never into fashion.

“I never got fashion right, really. My wife buys all my clothes now and she has for the last 20 years, thank God. I was at a meeting once at work and someone looked at me really pointedly and said a real sign of psychopathy - that someone's a psychopath is wearing the same outfit every day.”

Does he?

“It's just handy. I have loads of these T-shirts. They’re about two euros each, so Anne-Marie buys about ten at a time,” he laughs.

The pair then chatted about literature - and how some speak about writing and art in a way that excludes people.

“You operate in the proper literary world,” said Blindboy. “They'd never have a conversation like this, you would never find yourself at a literary thing where it's like, ‘Let's talk about your jeans and f**k*ng heavy metal’.”

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Blindboy continued. “They speak about writing and art in a way that excludes people. Unnecessarily big words. And, at the end of the day, writing, as far as I'm concerned, it's literally what you and I are talking about. It's the authenticity.”

Donal pointed: “It’s not the writers usually. And I have to say it, because if Paul Lynch hears this and doesn’t hear me saying that he's a heavy metaler as well, he'll go crazy.”

Paul Lynch won the Booker Prize for his novel, Prophet Song.

“He's a great writer. He's a friend of mine. We're actually members of a secret society called The Hermetic Order of the Gazebo. And I genuinely can’t say any more about it. It really is secret,” teased Donal.

This summer, Donal Ryan’s new novel, Heart, Be at Peace will be published by Penguin.