Q&A: Colm Toíbín, author | Life and style

Born in Ireland in 1955, Colm Tóibín is the author of eight novels, including Brooklyn, which won the 2009 Costa novel award, and is being made into a film. On 22 May, he discusses his latest book, Nora Webster, at the Charleston festival. He lives in Dublin.

When were you happiest?
On the Stanford University campus in the spring of 2006, when I was on my bicycle and had just given a class. Just that day, or that hour. By the next day I was sad again and have been slightly sad since.

What is your greatest fear?
That Ireland will eat me.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Humourlessness and laziness.

Aside from a property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve bought?
A beautiful painting by Callum Innes.

What is your screensaver?
I don’t know. I have never looked at my screensaver.

What makes you unhappy?
Not sleeping enough.

If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?
Black-and-white photographs.

Who would play you in the film of your life?
Jake Gyllenhaal the young me, and Jack Nicholson the mature version.

What is your most unappealing habit?
Often, when I am meant to be listening to someone talking, I am thinking about a novel or a short story that I am working on.

What is your favourite smell?
Fresh sweat; stale sweat; hot breath.

Which living person do you most despise, and why?
I don’t like the Catholic bishop of Elphin in Ireland, Kevin Doran.

What is your favourite word?
Sleep.

Which book changed your life?
I liked Henry James’s The Portrait Of A Lady when I was 18.

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
The Catholic church is always saying sorry. I have come to feel that they don’t mean it. We live in the age of apology. I am against it.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My boyfriend.

What was the best kiss of your life?
A recent one.

Have you ever said ‘I love you’ and not meant it?
No, I most certainly have not!

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Samuel Beckett with his wife and his mother.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“I am a sad boy from a small town.”

What is the worst job you’ve done?
In a motor taxation office in the time before computers.

What has been your biggest disappointment?
I would like to have been a poet.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
That at least a quarter of the time I still behave like an adolescent.

How would you like to be remembered?
For my sweet temper.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
In Ireland and England, you drive on the left. In other places, such as Spain, you drive on the right. That has proved useful.

Where would you most like to be right now?
In California. With twilight coming.

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