Caragh Maxwell: “I leave facets of myself in everything I write. I’m a big proponent of ‘write what you know’"

Caragh Maxwell knows change. She was born and raised in Mullingar, got her Trinity College MPhil in Creative Writing in Dublin,  and now writes professionally from a rented place in Sligo. She’s been a poet, essayist, online content writer and now novelist – and she’s put a lot into the endeavour.

“I’m a terrible procrastinator, I put things on the long finger,” she says. “So I struggled with committing to sit down for just one hour every day to write. But over time, when I started working the job I’m in at the minute, I decided it was time to buckle down and do this. I want to do something different and have this be my career. To do that, I just had to commit.”

And commit she did. She worked on her novel throughout her postgraduate studies, even based her Masters thesis on it, and it has finally come to fruition.

“It’s been my dream since I was tiny, to write books.” What would tiny Caragh think of published novelist Caragh? “She’d be delighted,” adult Caragh says. Younger Caragh would also be quite chuffed about this interview being printed, she adds.

“When I was maybe 16, I briefly wanted to be a journalist and my one and only life goal was to have my work in Hot Press,” she tells me. “So this is a big personal moment for me.”

Sugartown is her debut novel, and it follows a protagonist similarly accustomed to change: Saoirse Maher emigrated to London to get away from family drama and the claustrophobia of a small town. But after a harsh break-up pulls the rug out from under her, Saoirse goes home.

Some things are the same – her old friends and habits are there to catch her – but far more has changed beyond recognition. The distant mother who was once subject to angry outbursts, if Saoirse called her by “mam” rather than her first name, is now happily devoted to Saoirse’s younger sisters; sisters who Saoirse barely knows.

Her old coping mechanisms aren’t working and her new relationship isn’t quite as healthy as one would hope. She’s forced to come to terms with every part of herself, good and bad. One central idea of the book is the return home to family and the many mixed emotions that come with it.

Many young Irish adults know this well; census data shows an uptick in Irish adults aged 18 and older living with parents, having increased 19% in the past 11 years and still climbing. Maxwell has some strong feelings on the topic.

“It’s disgraceful of our government and its economy to be in such a way that people my age and older are having to move back to their parents’ box rooms, or split rent with their parents, or constantly be living in a house share,” she remarks. “That’s a disgrace. I don’t think that’s indicative of a functioning economy whatsoever.”

Sugartown by Caragh Maxwell

Maxwell remarks that between the two options which seem most viable to young Irish adults, either living with family or emigrating, both reflect the pain of empty promises from our government.

“I’m lucky enough I’m renting at the minute in Sligo,” she says. “But there’s people in my life, close relations, best friends, who are all doing the box room thing or considering emigrating. What an indictment of the state of the place. We were promised a house by this age with two cars in the garage, three kids, a marriage. So many of us are putting that on the backburner because we can’t even move out of our parents’ place.”

Of course, her characters in Sugartown tried both options, to mixed success. Aside from larger cultural factors playing in, there is a significantly personal sense of connection Maxwell feels to the story.

“That sense of not quite fitting in, being the square peg in the round hole in every situation, feeling lost and adrift in life, not being able to place yourself for too long in any one space,” she lists. “There’s definitely threads and undertones of me and my personal experience in there… I try not to be too all over this book, but it’s kind of unavoidable.

“I leave facets of myself in everything I write. I’m a big proponent of ‘write what you know,’ so even if the scenarios in the book aren’t things that happened to me, the emotions are the same.”

One particular part of herself that she weaves into Sugartown is music. Saoirse’s room is plastered with posters of 1990s and 2000s rock bands, she listens to psychedelic rock-pop while enjoying some sugar (read: hallucinogens), and she and her friends camp out at a music festival.

“When I was trying to feel my way into Saoirse’s character, I asked myself, what was I into? And where do I come from on stuff like this? So there is a bit of me in there with things like music,” Maxwell explains.

Music has been a central part of her process, she says. She describes the rituals of her writing process: make a cup of tea, sit down somewhere comfortable, put on some music and write till the candle burns out. One might assume a writing soundtrack would include classical music, maybe some jazz. Not for Maxwell.

“When I was writing Sugartown, I listened to a sick amount of Mac Miller, strangely enough,” she reveals. “He was in my top five artists on Spotify for like three years while I was working on the book, so any time I hear him, that’s the vibe of the book. But at the moment, I’m back to my teenage roots of Nirvana and Paramore, and all the old stuff I used to listen to when I was younger, because it’s cool again.”

It’s cool indeed. Saoirse’s posters seem to agree. Albeit, Maxwell still makes sure to remove herself from some parts of the story. Saoirse’s hometown is vividly described but never specifically named, which was all part of Maxwell’s master plan.

“I’m originally from Mullingar, so you’re going to see shades of Mullingar, but I purposely left out place names because I wanted it to be more of a homogenous small town in Ireland,” she explains.

The origin of her characters and plot points are also non-specific, though less intentional. Maxwell says Saoirse came to her in sporadic lightning-strike visions.

“Generally, a character comes to me and they don’t leave me alone,” she describes. “If I find myself thinking about them in the shower or cooking dinner or walking the dog, I’m like, ‘Okay, you are bothering me now and I need to put you on paper.’ That was the driving force for Saoirse and most of the book, really. It’s like, if I’m relentlessly thinking about this, I need to put it on paper.”

The way Maxwell speaks of her characters hints at a deep sense of affection for them, or at least care. After all, she’s put pieces of her heart into them; she hopes readers won’t be too harsh on them.

“Saoirse is not supposed to be an idealised version of anything or perfect in any way,” she asserts. “She is flawed, she is irritating. She has her downs, but she has her ups as well. The human spirit is relentless. Just be gentle with her. Take her as she is.”

The relentless human spirit seems to be at the core of Sugartown. Saoirse goes through pain, she goes through heartbreak, she goes through rage and joy, and round and round again, but she still she persists. Maxwell hopes readers will reflect on that universal experience of personhood.

“I feel like if people could see themselves anywhere in there and take some comfort in that, then I would be happy,” she declares.
Caragh hints that she’s working on a second book.

“It’s in its infancy and I love it already. I hope other people will, even though I’m just trying to flesh it out at the minute,” she says. But for now, she’s focused on the release of Sugartown.
For anyone who needs a cry, a laugh, or a sense of real human connection: pick up a copy and prepare to look in the mirror.

• Sugartown is out now .