The world's playground, and spaceships at war
With excerpts from Timothy O'Grady's Monaghan and Children of Las Vegas
This evening, I’ll be making my debut visit to Hammersmith’s Irish Cultural Centre for the launch of Timothy O’Grady’s new novel, Monaghan. There’s been a lot of love for this book, and deservedly so — just this morning, The TLS called it a ‘bold and frequently brilliant meditation on memory, guilt and the unstable and shifting nature of identity.’
We’ve included an excerpt from Monaghan in today’s issue; there’s also a snippet from Timothy’s 2016 non-fiction book Children Of Las Vegas, which speaks to people who grew up there and uncovers the truth behind the lights and noise of the popular city. These two books are distances apart in genre, location, and topic — but they’re united by the quietly brilliant storytelling of an author ‘of exceptional gifts’, to quote Irish writer Louise Kennedy.
Sadia Nowshin
Junior Editor
Blood running down the bricks
An extract from Timothy O'Grady's new novel Monaghan
The boy opened his eyes. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, seconds, minutes, maybe even an hour. He was too young to have an accurate sense of the passage of time. But he knew, nevertheless, that he had this lack. He was in the back yard of his house on a hot July afternoon, his back to the wall and his legs stretched out before him. The air over the ground rippled in the heat.
The street door had slammed. That was what had awakened him, he now realised. He had dreamed something, but what? He tried to chase an image but couldn’t get it. He heard the footsteps of his father move through the house. What a scorcher! said his father through the kitchen window, then pulled his head back in again.
The boy looked along the yard to the end wall. He saw a white cat stretched out there on the ledge, his hind quarters in the sun and his head in the shade made by the shed. The boy rose to move away, but a heaviness in his legs kept him there. He slumped back against the wall. There was no wind. The boy heard the woman in the house next door singing along to the radio. He watched the cat. He watched the way the light came off its fur in a different way as it breathed. After a while the cat got up, stretched, turned around and lay down again, its head resting on its paws, the line of the shadow bisecting its face. The sun bothered it and it closed its eyes. The boy narrowed his eyes too and when he did the lines that defined the cat became indistinct, the light splintering into bands of colour. He opened them and closed them. He leaned a little to his right, then to his left. He could, he believed, go on doing this through the whole of the afternoon.
Each time it was a different cat.
Monaghan will be launched at Hammersmith’s Irish Cultural Centre today, for which tickets are still available. The book is available to preorder now
Children in the world's playground
An excerpt from Timothy O'Grady's 2016 book, Children Of Las Vegas
NEVADA STUPAK
Businessman
Son of a casino owner
My dad found a stuntman and offered him a million bucks to jump off the Stratosphere. Highest freefall ever. I got the day off school to watch it. I saw the guy, just a little speck way up on the ledge. He must have been up there for more than twenty minutes, thinking long and hard about it. Then off he went, came sailing down, landed on an air mattress. No problem, just hopped off, walked over to my dad to collect the million dollars. He thought he was made. My dad says, ‘Did you read the contract?’ The guy goes, ‘Yeah, I’m a millionaire!’ ‘Check again,’ says my dad. ‘There’s a $990,000 landing fee.’ The guy was freaking out. He’d risked his life and all he was getting was ten thousand bucks. But what could he do? He’s a daredevil, not a businessman. He doesn’t read contracts.
That was the Vegas style before the super-chefs, the superrooms. It was carnival land, Barnum and Bailey, Evel Knievel jumping over buses. Coupons! Two for one! Try your luck! My dad was always making up things – promotional stunts, discount offers, new casino games. He had one deal where you could play tic-tac-toe with a chicken for money. I grew up with that. Acrobats would come over to the house and do flips off the diving board. I used to sit right up on the stage with an Elvis impersonator. His name was Morris. A front-row seat wasn’t good enough. I thought he was Elvis. Morris, he was my idol back then.
My dad grew up in gambling. His father ran an illegal craps game on the third floor of a restaurant and bar establishment called the Lotus Club in Pittsburgh. It went on for fifty years. Chester Stupak, he was a big man in Pittsburgh. He knew every cop and politician in town. There was a pool table, dice and a sliding window on the door. I saw it in operation myself. If a competitor opened up my grandfather would go over there and try to bust them. That was my dad’s standard. He was pure gambling, blue collar. Steve Wynn came in here with everything premium-brand – marble halls, luxurious carpet, great contemporary art on the walls. MMy grandfather used to put up a stack of bread, a stack of baloney and a stack of cheese. Anybody got hungry they could make themselves a sandwich. My dad was the same. As far as he was concerned a gambler only wants to look at the table, the chips and the dealer, not at how good the restaurant and art are.
My dad learned the math for gambling from my grandfather. The thing was to get them in and let the probabilities bring you the money. 1.5, that was the number for blackjack. That was the percentage figure for the house advantage. ‘Every bet costs you money,’ he’d say to me. ‘You put $10,000 down on blackjack and it costs you $150.’ I couldn’t understand it for the longest time. ‘But what if you win?’ I’d say. ‘Doesn’t matter, still costs $150.’ ‘But how?’ I’d say. ‘You’ve got the extra ten you’ve just won.’ And he’d say, ‘The statistical advantage to the house, over time, is $150.’ I was thinking in actual situations while he was thinking in mathematical probabilities. Of course anyone can get lucky. The stories of the big winners are the greatest thing for promoting the gaming business. It makes people think they can win, while for the most part gamblers are desperate people who are losing their money because the math runs true. My dad learned that in childhood.
Children Of Las Vegas was published in 2016
Spotted Flycatcher Muscicapa striata
The Spotted Flycatcher’s twisting acrobatic flight enables it to catch large insects, including moths, butterflies and bees, which they smash against their perch to remove the sting.
Jim Moir's More Birds was published in November 2024