Eimear McBride

Thursday 11 June 2026

What a joy to listen to the fascinating and absorbing conversation between Eimear McBride and our former chair Jacquie Knott, as Eimear generously shared her inspirations and her writing journey. She has intrigued readers and critics since her debut novel, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing (2013) appeared. Written in a fragmented, stream of consciousness style, it took nine years to be published. The conversation at The Atrium focused mainly on her most recent novel, The City Changes Its Face (2025), a follow up to The Lesser Bohemians (2016). Set in Camden Town, we meet Eily, an 18 year old student who arrives to study drama and becomes passionately involved with Stephen, a 39 year old actor. These two characters return in the more recent novel, set a year later, which retraces their two year relationship in search of what has gone wrong.

Eimear explores language in her writing, wanting to ensure that ‘you are hearing something different and fresh’. Joyce has been a major influence, though she was already writing when she read Ulysses for the first time. ‘I came to Joyce at 25 and he rocked my world. Nothing was the same after that – the novel could be anything – the freedom that gave me! The disregard for the proprieties of form – loved him ever since’.

She lived in Camden Town for a number of years and was homesick for the place when she left. The Lesser Bohemians was a love letter to Camden Town in the 90s but her latest novel is different, ‘The city was not so romantic any more … things become different after time’. Unlike Joyce who gave very specific details of place in writing about Dublin, Eimear went with her memory. Her writing is more internal, not interested in the details of description. She wants to move away from social realism, arguing that ‘the novel does not need to do that any more. Victorian novels were necessary in their time’. She thinks that AI has changed things. ‘Because of AI, the novel needs to explore the inner world of a human being. AI does not have access to the soul’.

In response to a question, Eimear agreed that being a trained actor has influenced her writing. She studied the Stanislavsky method, which gave her a love of character and of language and she has brought this to her writing. Her writing is not polemical or political, character is what interests her. She describes their specific experience and the characters grow out of the situation. She said ‘It starts with a sense of a mood or an emotion’ and feels ‘a great sense of responsibility’ to the characters. It is ‘the only life they will have’. She does not control them, instead she is trying to understand them and to give them a life. ‘Part of the experience of writing is trusting where the story is going’. She needed to find a new language that would ‘explain all aspects of a person’. She is interested in describing how people survive and overcome hardships and relationships where people love but cannot make it work.

She has not finished with Eily and Stephen yet. She promises another book, but it might take a while, ‘They come at their own pace’. While waiting, I would recommend you to read her books and I would certainly recommend her audio books, which she narrates herself. The highlight of my evening was listening to Eimear reading excerpts from her book. Her wonderful voice, intonation and phrasing brought the character to life.

Dymphna Crowe