There was so much interior drama in this quiet and unassuming book that I was often on the edge of my seat as I was reading, wanting these men and everyone around them to stay happy. Maybe because real life these days seems to be a mine field, filled with stress and anxiety, a book like this is a balm for the soul. At least it was that way for me. Bluemoose Books is an independent publisher based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, and describes itself as a “‘family’ of readers and writers, passionate about the written word and stories, [who] delight in finding great new talent.” Admirably in 2020 they have committed to a woman-only list for 2020.

Rónán Hession’s first novel, 2019’s Leonard and Hungry Paul, won the word-of-mouth success that small publishers dream of, and it hasn’t stopped rolling yet: shortlisted for half a dozen prizes, it recently made the One Dublin One Book choice for people across Hession’s home city to read. For a book that defies convention I would heartily recommend Leonard and Hungry Paul. It’s as simple as it is unique … a celebration of kindness and having enough and being content — and living a life devoid of high drama and conflict. It’s very funny, and well-written, poetic in places. But above all it’s kind, a celebration of often overlooked people.” — Kit de Waal, author of My Name Is Leon Part of why I enjoy Hession’s books so much is that they’re unashamedly kind and optimistic when literary fashion often veers towards the dark and nihilistic. He puts this down to a couple of influences. “Leonard and Hungry Paul in particular, is heavily influenced by coming out of a decade of reading children’s books for my kids,” he says. “What children’s books do a bit better than other fiction is they try to go beyond just saying ‘the world is a bad place’… They try and say, ‘Is there a way to be in the world, given the world is the way it is? How do I engage with the world without it overwhelming me?’… That’s something I think of in my own life and it comes out in the book.” As sometimes happens with boys who prefer games to sports, Leonard had few friends but lots of ideas. His mother understood with good intuitive sense that children like Leonard just need someone to listen to them”Leonard to his best buddy Hungry Paul, while playing a game of Yahtzee and mulling over the meaning of life. Want to have your reading group featured on a future Book Club episode? Get in touch to find out more.

In his radiant first novel, Irish musician Hession (aka Mumblin’ Deaf Ro) takes readers into the quiet, seemingly ordinary world of two unusual men, both in their 30s, both solitary by nature: Leonard, who writes entries for children’s encyclopedias, and Hungry Paul, a substitute postman, who works, when needed, on Mondays. Leonard lived with his mother, who has just died; Hungry Paul, with his parents, a retired economist and his cheerful wife, a primary school teacher, nearly retired herself. Although gossips may disparage an adult still living with parents as indolent, Hession portrays the men with respect and generosity. Hungry Paul “never left home because his family was a happy one, and maybe it’s rarer than it ought to be that a person appreciates such things.” The two appreciate their friendship as well: They play board games together, take walks, and confide in one another. Their friendship is a pact “to resist the vortex of busyness and insensitivity that had engulfed the rest of the world. It was a pact of simplicity, which stood against the forces of competitiveness and noise.” Of the two, Hungry Paul seems the more content, blessed with an inviolable “mental stillness” and “natural clarity” that inure him to troubling thoughts: “He just had no interest in, or capacity for, mental chatter.” Leonard is more inclined to second-guess himself and to conjure problems. He becomes afraid that withdrawing from the world might narrow his perspective, turn him “vinegary,” and make other people seem increasingly “unfathomable and perplexing.” He wants to open himself to experiences but worries that if Hungry Paul is content within his small universe, Leonard’s yearning to break out of his “own palpable milky loneliness” will threaten their friendship. The prospect of change propels the plot, prodding each man to articulate, with surprising self-awareness, the depths of his identity and to realize, as Hungry Paul reflects, that “making big decisions was just as consequential as not making them.” No one is “entirely outside of life’s choices; everything leads somewhere.” Leonard and Hungry Paul will be available to borrow from all public libraries nationwide and electronically through the BorrowBox app. A new One Dublin One Book edition of the book will be available from next month and a programme of online events will be announced in early March. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with this book. If there were an award for “Most Inoffensive Book”, this would probably win it. The central characters of the book are the two friends of the title, both of whom are quiet single men in their 30s. Leonard works as a writer providing text for children's encyclopedias, and has recently lost his mother (as the striking opening line says he has been fatherless almost since birth). Hungry Paul (the Hungry part of the name is never explained, nor are there any behavioural clues to its origin, nor is he ever referred to by name by anyone other than the omniscient narrator, and for me this grated a little) still lives with his parents, and has an occasional job as a casual postman. Leonard regularly visits Paul's house to play board games.It pained Leonard to think that he might be outgrowing Hungry Paul, as though their friendship had become a reverse tontine, where the last man standing was the loser. The prize, a retreating life of diminishment. Leonard and Hungry Paul is the debut novel by Irish writer Ronan Hession, though many at home will be familiar with his music, performed under the moniker Mumblin’ Deaf Ro. Published by UK based Bluemoose Books, it has has built and perpetuated considerable momentum since its release, and was nominated for the Irish book of the Year Awards. Jemanden seine volle Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken ist der größte Respekt, den man einem Menschen entgegenbringen kann.“ (S. 290) The quiet, unobtrusive and meaning-filled book is the story of two friends – Leonard and Hungry Paul – both quiet 30-ish year old men living quiet, unobtrusive but still meaning-filled lives, still based in their childhood homes.

Those headaches could provide a narrative driver, but instead the story rattles like a pinball between all those whose lives Joseph touches: daughter, friends, hairdresser and more. What the book loses in focus from this it gains in breadth, with pleasing comic crosstalk between characters, affecting moments of intimacy during a haircut, and spookily well-observed scenes of parent-child interaction. The descriptions of his loneliness, and his “sudden” awareness of it, are so sad to read. It’s so hard not to feel sorry for the feelings he is having. Always on the periphery, with that awkwardness many of us feel at times. Oh Leonard! As a hailing, this phrase is eccentric yet disarming. It also shares a description with the two characters that share the book’s title— Leonard and Hungry Paul. It is also a variation of Hungry Paul’s entry for the Chamber of Commerce’s sign-off contest, which he doesn’t want the prize money for. The two autodidacts can be found wearing paisley pajama tops to work, making jokes without meaning to be funny, or naming their parents’ house after a French song lyric that they misinterpreted. Eccentric yet disarming.The eponymous protagonists are men in their early thirties still living in their childhood homes. Leonard’s mother has recently died leaving him alone in trying to work out how to cope with his quiet grief. His work – writing text for boilerplate encyclopedias marketed for children, which will be published under a better known author’s name – fills his day but offers limited satisfaction. He recognises his social awkwardness, especially when he becomes attracted to the office fire marshal, Shelley. He has little idea how he is expected to interact in potentially romantic situations. Leonard and Hungry Paul, by Rónán Hession, is a novel of wry intelligence wrapped around the quiet rhythms of ordinary lives as they are being lived. The apparent simplicity of the narrative carries the reader through moments of insight as characters speak from their hearts on everyday dilemmas. The rarity of such truthfulness in conversation and the skill with which thoughts and feelings are conveyed make this a singular read. God, what a voice Ronan has. It is spectacular and already feels like a cult classic. I was absolutely hooked.’— Donal Ryan, The Spinning Heart

Furthermore, unlike most artists, Hession has never fantasised about leaving his day job, never sat “dreaming of an alternative existence”. He points to a rich legacy of civil servants who wrote, people like Egyptian Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz and Flann O’Brien and Thomas Kinsella. “Civil servants are interested in things very close to what writers are interested in,” he says. “You’re interested in society, and fundamentally, the position of individuals in society… That ‘zoom in, zoom out’ type perspective of the civil servant feels very natural in novel writing. I’ve a very interesting job. I love it very much… You’re dealing with some of the marginalised people in society. It is quite grounding. But also, you’re in a position to do things about it. I believe in my country. I believe in Irish society. My interest in the civil service and my writing is to try and contribute to that... And I’m okay with writing books that fit into my life. I believe in integration of everything. I’m not really one for compartmentalising. I try to be the same in writing as I am in work as I am with my kids. I don’t feel I’m playing roles.”

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Panenka, his next book, has football in it. It’s a moving story about a retired footballer grappling with a sense of failure. What inspired it? “I remember reading Disgrace by JM Coetzee,” he says. “Disgrace is a really interesting topic and it didn’t really deal with it in a way that I was expecting… Also, I had read an interview with Daniel Timofte, the guy who lost a penalty against Ireland for Romania… He hadn’t got over it. And people hadn’t let him get over it. And though he was a very talented footballer it was still the thing he was known for. The main theme of that book is life’s unfixability. I think our mentality at times is trying to fix the things in our life to allow us to move on to try and say, well, how can you move on if they’re not fixable?” Unashamedly optimistic