The 'Dam Nation Game

A former Northern Ireland school teacher David Park isn’t an obvious candidate for lifting the lid on life in 21st century Amsterdam, but that’s exactly what he has achieved with his latest novel.

Anne Sexton, 12 Apr 2012

As a former schoolteacher David Park is probably used to minor annoyances. When I accidentally knock a glass of water all over his pants and shoes, he is unfailingly kind about my clumsiness.

“Oh, you’re alright,” he says with a smile. “You’re okay.”

I’m not surprised then when he tells me that his former pupils often keep in touch to let him know how they’re faring. Park, a teacher for 34 years, began writing in his late 30s.

“I was a committed teacher,” he says. “You owe it to the students. I believed in it. I was always trying to clear a little space for writing, at the weekends or on holiday. Writing always came second.”

Readers will be glad he did make time. His latest novel, The Light Of Amsterdam, is a quietly powerful character-driven book. Written in graceful, elegant prose, the novel follows three people from Northern Ireland who head for Amsterdam on the same weekend and explores relationships and human failings.

“I think the book is about love,” Park reflects. “I’m particularly interested in the parent-child relationship and how a parent finds a means, a conduit, to give their love to a child even when the child doesn’t necessarily want it.”

The book examines two parent-child relationships. Circumstances force divorced father Alan to bring his emotionally withdrawn teenage son Jack to Amsterdam to see Bob Dylan in concert; and single mother Karen takes her first trip abroad for her daughter Shannon’s hen weekend. Park also looks at marriage and how infidelity – or the fear of it – can bring a relationship to a crisis point. Alan’s divorce is predicated on a single, unfulfilling moment of sexual infidelity. This is contrasted with Marion, who believes her husband Richard is planning to cheat.

“Marion is damaged by her deep personal insecurities. She desperately believes that he will be unfaithful to her and is waiting for that to happen, and that corrodes away at her. What she attempts to do in Amsterdam is make it happen within her frame of control and that’s a risky thing to do. In contrast, Alan’s infidelity has sent him spinning into a life he hasn’t anticipated. He’s afflicted by guilt and regret. He has to reshape and reform his life.”

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