Searching Identity Through Literature and Travel

Madrid aficionado and debut author, David Looby, talks about his novel, ‘A Billion Sharp Pieces’, which takes readers on an unforgettable journey through Spain´s Basque Country while exploring the complexity of human emotions and relationships.

“I was born into an international home: my mother hailing from Upstate New York, my father from Kerry. That duality sparked a search for identity in my teens and the blossoming of my interest in writing.

Of course, there are many positives to being a dual citizen. You have your home country (in my case Ireland), but you also spend a lot of time in another country: I spent many childhood summers in America. You get to see more of the world and your eyes are opened to what life is like in different countries, but in your teenage years when you’re trying to stake a claim for yourself, it can make you feel at times like a half-being: that you’re neither one nor the other. People are very partisan and parochial about their sense of place and any hint that you are not from a long-tailed family in that area can sometimes draw an invisible line separating you and them.

Far from home

Adapting to living in another country or place is a survival skill and in my debut novel, A Billion Sharp Pieces, we encounter the protagonist, Dubliner Todd McCarthy, who is far from home – struggling to find himself so much that he ends up losing himself trying to impress a dominant, charismatic friend called Jack Salback. And while they are vacationing in San Sebastián – a city renowned for its beauty, rich Basque culture, and food scene – we can see that Jack is from a wealthy background and is able to enjoy all that life in a city like San Sebastián can offer, while Todd is staying in much more basic accommodation having had a more challenging path to get to where he is in his life.

The novel flashes back to Todd and Jack’s teenage years growing up in Ireland and the challenges they both faced: Todd being socially awkward and a misfit, and Jack who experienced the death of his mother at a young age. The novel explores themes of toxic masculinity and how the pressure young men feel to live up to cultural ideals of what it is to be a man impacts their behaviour. For Todd this is something he really struggles with and in university life in University College Cork (UCC) and in his travels, we encounter a man who is lost in the adult world and struggling to form relationships and peace of mind, while Jack fits more seamlessly into adulthood: from his sporting prowess, to his good fortune in landing a job at his father’s car company.

The novel explores the dislocation Todd feels which is akin to imposter syndrome in being a young man trying to integrate into society when his mental health is in a bad place. Meanwhile, Jack enjoys a hedonistic life, which leads his mental health to a dark place where violence becomes an outlet for his grief and frustration.

Home

As anyone who lives away from home knows, there is always a wrench, a pull, at times a sharp pain of homesickness in the heart which increases and decreases depending onone’s mood, the timeof year, the weather, but the search for a notion of home is always there.

The idea of home as a fixed place is – for many people – a constant source of conflict. For me it’s more a place in the heart, an act of creation and realization. This is the case for many people who through various circumstances have to travel a lot or live away from their birthplace town, village or city. At times like birthdays, Christmas, lazy Sundays, you miss spending time with family. This is something Todd and Jack both face in the novel. The self that emerges in isolation, in loneliness, in strife, in challenging times.

Living or visiting a foreign city is an exciting thing but one part of the self is always back where they grew up. In this age of social media, people can check in with their home places, and many do, to check on the weather or read the local paper to see who got married or who was in court. These things are innate in us and in my own small way, I hope A Billion Sharp Pieces – which is based on the years 2009 to 2019 and set in Cork, Dublin, Lanzarote and primarily San Sebastián – shows a connectedness between us which readers can embrace”.

Published by Madrid based bilingual publishers, Ybernia, ‘A Billion Sharp Pieces is available on their website, via Amazon Spain and Amazon UK and in some Madrid and in Irish bookshops.

Front Image credit: Inakipm