The Last Goodbye (44 page)

At least the lights were off.

With trepidation and slow steps she walked up the driveway to her home. No matter how hard she tried and how successfully she carried it off at work, once she was on her own doorstep, she couldn’t push the reality of her life out of her head anymore.

Interview with Caroline Finnerty

1. Where did the idea for
The Last Goodbye
come from?

The idea came from a story a friend told me one day about a woman she knew that was confronted with the same dilemma facing Eva. The lady was pregnant and learned she had an aggressive form of cancer. She refused to take the treatment offered and unfortunately neither she nor her baby survived. This story really affected me when I heard it – it got me thinking about how a person can be in one way be so selfless for their unborn baby that they put their own health second but it also left me wondering if she had taken treatment, would she and her unborn child both have lived?

Around the same time I read about Sheila Hodgers, the County Louth woman who was refused cancer treatment during her pregnancy in 1982 because her practitioners claimed it would harm the foetus. She was left without treatment or even pain relief until she delivered her baby two months premature in March 1983. Sadly her baby didn’t survive and she died two days later.

Although different to the storyline in
The Last Goodbye
because the character Eva was not denied treatment, in fact she was encouraged to take it, I wanted to explore the idea of a pregnant woman being a vehicle for her unborn baby, which essentially Eva is, although it is by her own choice.

2. How did you research the storyline?

The main difficulty I had was that Eva’s story is set in 1992 and most information on the internet was relevant to the present day so I had to ensure that the storyline reflected treatments available at that time. Therefore I read medical journals both primary literature and reviews that were published in the early 1990’s so that my research was as accurate as possible. I have a Masters degree in Biology so I would have a general understanding of medical terminology, which definitely helped.

When I had a basic level of research carried out, I devised a medical questionnaire and I contacted Dr. Grainne Flannelly of the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street who very kindly answered my questions. I hope I have reflected medical treatments as accurately as possible but any errors or deviations from correct practice are my fault.

I think it’s important to point out that recent studies have shown chemotherapy to be safe for the foetus after the first trimester, which is welcome development for any woman who is faced with this awful dilemma.

3. Do you have a favourite character?

I have to say I have a soft spot for Kate, the main protagonist. She has spent her life running away from her problems and I’m sure the reader will find her quite frustrating as a person to begin with. I know I personally just wanted to shake her at times but by the end of the book I think she has grown and developed as person.

4. What scene was the most difficult/interesting to write?

I found Eva’s last scene, where the she is dying in hospital and she finally opens up about her fears of dying with Sister Rita emotional to write. For the first time, the reader gets to see Eva without her usual brave face and jokey manner. Also later that night when Noel is at her bedside and she is reminiscing back on a day that the family had at the beach in happier times, being a mother myself, I found that scene hard to write.

5. The character of Eva tends to bury her head in the sand rather than face up to her problems, was that an intentional character trait?

It was intentional. I think Eva is an eternal optimist, she has an ‘ah sure it will all be grand’ mentality and doesn’t like to dwell too long on her problems. I think she really believed that it would all be okay, she didn’t see her decision as heroic or as a form of self-sacrifice. She believed that once she delivered her baby, then she would take her treatment and get better too and that is why she made the decision that she did.

I’m sure the reader will notice that Kate seems to have inherited her mother’s inability to face up to her problems, which is why she spent so many years of her life unable to confront her past. I deliberately wanted them both to have this trait to help to show their similar personalities.

6. Your first novel
In a Moment,
and
The Last Goodbye
both have a ‘what would you do?’ moral dilemma at their heart, why is that?

I think there are lots of situations in life where there are no easy answers. As a fiction writer I have the benefit of being able to explore both sides of a dilemma. Sometimes when I am writing, I ask myself ‘what would I do in that situation?’ but then when I think about it from the other point of view, I can often empathise with that viewpoint too.

In Eva’s case if she had taken the treatment offered to her she may have survived but would Aoife? In my first novel,
In a Moment
, the character Jean struggles with a decision, which goes against all her maternal loyalties to her son Paul.

I suppose there are situations in life for which there are no easy answers, we just have to make the best decision we can at that time. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong.

7. Have you always wanted to be a writer?

I was always bookish as a child and have memories of ripping pages out of copybooks, drawing pictures on one side of the paper and writing stories on the other. Then when I was finished I would staple them all together into a book. In school I loved nothing more than mulling over an essay topic that the teacher gave us for homework or writing arguments for debates. I’ve always found it easier to say something on paper than express it verbally so I suppose my love of writing has always been there but I just didn’t recognise it in myself. I always thought writing books was something that ‘other people’ did. It wasn’t until my mid twenties that it occurred to me that I too could write a book so I decided to give it a go. After a few false starts, I had the idea for
In a Moment
,
after myfirst child was born and I knew I had to write it.

8. Tell us a bit about your writing process – do you like to plot much before starting a novel or do you prefer to dive straight in?

I fall into the latter camp. I have tried plotting my novels chapter by chapter in the past – I think it would be much easier to sit down at the laptop every day if I knew what I had to write about for that day, but it just doesn’t work for me. I find I only really get to know my characters when I start writing them, that’s when they take me off and teach me things that I never knew about them.

When I have an idea for a story I will let it sift around in my head for a while and flesh out the characters a bit before I will start writing. I usually start with a rough outline of the themes of the novel, the general story and some key scenes. Sometimes I will know the ending but not always. It’s a bit of a scarier way to do things because it’s like setting off on a journey with a map but it means I get to take the scenic route and see new things and visit different places along the way.

9. Who are your favourite authors and why?

As a teenager I would devour Deirdre Purcell and Maeve Binchy novels. I also love Marian Keyes and Ciara Geraghty who are both fantastically talented Irish authors. I also enjoy reading JoJo Moyes, Maggie O’Farrell for emotional sagas and David Nicholl for humour.

10. Tell us a bit about your next book – have you started writing it yet?

I am nearly halfway through it. The main protagonist, Conor Fahy has just lost the love of his life, his long term partner Leni who died tragically when she was knocked off her bike a few months previously and Conor is struggling to cope with everyday life.

Jack White is eight years old. He likes Ben 10, Giant Jawbreaker sweets and reading books. He likes his Dad - when he doesn’t shout. He doesn’t like the bad monsters that are eating up his mammy inside her tummy.

It is the story which explores the unlikely friendship between a boy and a man who come into each other’s lives when they both are in need of a friend.

Contents

1. Chapter 1
   
2. Chapter 2
   
3. Chapter 3
   
4. Chapter 4
   
5. Chapter 5
   
6. Chapter 6
   
7. Chapter 7
   
8. Chapter 8
   
9. Chapter 9
   
10. Chapter 10
    
11. Chapter 11
    
12. Chapter 12
    
13. Chapter 13
    
14. Chapter 14
    
15. Chapter 15
    
16. Chapter 16
    
17. Chapter 17
    
18. Chapter 18
    
19. Chapter 19
    
20. Chapter 20
    
21. Chapter 21
    
22. Chapter 22
    
23. Chapter 23
    
24. Chapter 24
    
25. Chapter 25
    
26. Chapter 26
    
27. Chapter 27
    
28. Chapter 28
    
29. Chapter 29
    
30. Chapter 30
    
31. Chapter 31
    
32. Chapter 32
    
33. Chapter 33
    
34. Chapter 34
    
35. Chapter 35
    
36. Chapter 36
    
37. Chapter 37
    
38. Chapter 38
    
39. Chapter 39
    
40. Chapter 40
    
41. Chapter 41
    
42. Chapter 42
    
43. Chapter 43
    
44. Chapter 44
    
45. Chapter 45
    
46. Chapter 46
    
47. Chapter 47
    
48. Chapter 48
    
49. Chapter 49
    
50. Chapter 50
    
51. Chapter 51
    
52. Chapter 52
    
53. Chapter 53
    
54. Chapter 54
    
55. Chapter 55
    
56. Chapter 56
    
57. Chapter 57
    
58. Two Months Later
    
59. In a Moment Prologue
    
60. In a Moment Chapter 1
    
61. In a Moment Chapter 2
    
62. Interview with Caroline Finnerty