I've been using a facebook page called Derry of the Past to help build a sense of what the town was like when Brendan lived there and how it is when he returns. There are videos and photographs galore, but what's best is all the comments from people who lived there...who recognize places long since redeveloped out of existence...helping center me around the town. It's going slowly but bit by bit I'm getting a feel for what is where.
It's also helping me gain a better sense of how people talk, there. The slang and rhythms of their speech. There are some things I can't do, like let the kids call their mothers Mammy, as so many did and still do in that area. That word's connotations in the US are too poisoned. Besides, Ma is acceptable as commonplace. They also speak of shops and locations that I haven't gotten for books.
And I had a friend of mine, Brad Rushing, turn me on to the Facebook page of a woman who lives in Belfast and went through the Troubles in real time. She talks about being searched when going into shops and into the city center and across the border. Her comments are in response the coming catastrophe of Brexit, comparing how the border was back before the Good Friday Accord and how it is now...and how they do NOT want to go back to a hard border between Northern and Southern Ireland.
It makes some aspects of the story I want to tell a bit more difficult to work out, but overall what I have so far is pretty close to the reality of the time, just a bit too bright and optimistic.
I'm working on that.
It's also helping me gain a better sense of how people talk, there. The slang and rhythms of their speech. There are some things I can't do, like let the kids call their mothers Mammy, as so many did and still do in that area. That word's connotations in the US are too poisoned. Besides, Ma is acceptable as commonplace. They also speak of shops and locations that I haven't gotten for books.
And I had a friend of mine, Brad Rushing, turn me on to the Facebook page of a woman who lives in Belfast and went through the Troubles in real time. She talks about being searched when going into shops and into the city center and across the border. Her comments are in response the coming catastrophe of Brexit, comparing how the border was back before the Good Friday Accord and how it is now...and how they do NOT want to go back to a hard border between Northern and Southern Ireland.
It makes some aspects of the story I want to tell a bit more difficult to work out, but overall what I have so far is pretty close to the reality of the time, just a bit too bright and optimistic.
I'm working on that.
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