Grahame Williams: 'Random acts of violence could happen at any time'

Fictionable

Last time we heard from Jenny Erpenbeck, who told us that before her latest novel Kairos she'd "never written a love story". This time we welcome Grahame Williams and his short story Making It Happen.

Like the industrialist Sir John Harvey-Jones, an inspirational figure in Making It Happen, Williams says he's not much of a planner: "If there's a spark, then let's just start writing and see where it goes."

He didn't set out to tell the story of the Troubles, but – as in his own childhood – they loom over Quinton McCandless's life as an "ever-present threat".

"Stuff was going on, heinous things happening," Williams says, "that constant reminder that we live in quite a difficult and strange place."

Growing up, he didn't have "a very sophisticated understanding of the Troubles", Williams adds, and there was always an expectation that he would leave.

"My story was, I left Northern Ireland and the narrative was fulfilled," he says. "But what happens if you don't leave, if you have to stay?"

Living with a young family in England, Williams says he really feels "that distance from home… There's an ache, there's a pain that comes from having left."

Despite this sense of loss and the many troubles that beset Quinton in Making It Happen, Williams says he maintains a sunny outlook on life: "I'm definitely an optimist."

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