There would be plenty of time to storyboard everything. But the first order of business was a splashy cover. Niall first thought of making several inset panels of all the women Jim had killed, then decided against it. Too morbid. And it wouldn’t do the Walsh sisters justice, either. He also decided against a panorama showing all three of them knifing Jim to death down by the beach, with seagulls crying murder overhead.
An image came to him, stronger than the others.
The same one he’d tried and failed to conjure up that night at the post office, when he’d found the first diary.
It was a wolf, fully matured from its frail human existence into a feral predator. He would capture its expression, mid-lunge, at the exact moment when it nearly grabbed hold of a woman as she tried desperately to flee into the forest. Because that was the entire story, right there, wasn’t it?
Would he love her or kill her?
Niall didn’t know yet. But he was too impatient to wait until he got back home. There was a paper napkin on the table next to the empty glass. The wolf coursed through his fingers and made them thrum against the wood in anticipation.
He found a pencil and began to sketch.
A woman appeared on the paper. She resembled Róisín a bit, and was dressed exactly the way he’d imagined Princess Aisling when Euan first saw her.
There was no hiding in the dense foliage growing behind her, because the wolf had already taken shape in the foreground. For the first time, Niall got it exactly right. The fur was thick and rough. Its eye looked like translucent glass. In a moment, either love or death would triumph.
It was forever making up its mind.
Afterword and Thanks
Like Niall, I needed just one spark to begin imagining this tale. It came when I read an Irish newspaper story in the summer of 2000. An eighty-three-year-old woman and her three middle-aged nieces had all been found dead inside a house in County Kildare. According to local press, an inquest determined they had all committed suicide from self-imposed starvation.
I tried to forget about the brief article and found I couldn’t. I took it out and read it again. Then I got to thinking: What if it hadn’t been suicide? What if, instead, a standoff had taken place inside, with only enough time to smuggle two diaries out before the end? Could a grim discovery like that, told from the point of view of each sister, be the portal to a larger fictional drama about a lethal charmer who—in a very real sense—put all four women inside that house? You be the judge, since you’ve just finished reading. I hope you enjoyed it.
For the last several years, I’ve walked all over Dublin, Malahide, and counties Offaly and Laois, as well as the windblown hills of West Cork, in researching Darling Jim, and received the gracious hospitality of Irish people everywhere I went. That’s why certain place-names have been changed, out of respect for institutions or individuals who would otherwise be too immediately recognizable, even in fiction—which isn’t the point. Besides, how would I be able to show my face in Castletownbere or Eyeries for a pint ever again? The real Jonnos of this world might never forgive me. If I haven’t been discreet enough, be assured that no harm was intended. Any similarity to actual people is entirely coincidental.
Though the Norman invasion of Ireland was all too real, the tragic tale of King Stiofán and his twin sons is entirely my invention, as is the foreboding Fort of the Wolf.
Seanchaí may still be found all over Ireland, but not easily, since true storytelling is a wandering profession of great skill. And none of them, to my knowledge, has ever harmed so much as a hair on anybody’s head. Should you be lucky enough to find one, take a seat and listen. Tip well. It’s worth it.
A round of thanks are in order: To Máire Moriarty, Kieran Finnerty, Eileen Moriarty, Miriam McDonnell, Louise Cody, Sue Booth-Forbes, and Kathryn Brolly for their help and advice. Any mistakes in the text are mine alone, not theirs. I must also thank Neil Jordan for making sure I found my way to the Beara Peninsula in the first place.
Last, I’m indebted to Howard Chaykin for graciously agreeing to lend Niall his talent and his quiver of pencils. The poor kid would’ve never got it right, otherwise. Thanks, pal.
Christian Moerk
Inches
Eyeries, County Cork
September 2007
About the Author
Born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark, CHRISTIAN MOERK moved to Vermont in his early twenties. After getting his BA in sociology and history from Marlboro College and an MS in journalism from Columbia University, he wrote for Variety, was a movie executive for Warner Bros. Pictures, and later wrote about film for The New York Times. Darling Jim is his first novel published in America. He lives in Brooklyn.
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