Kirwan, Larry 1957(?)–

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Kirwan, Larry 1957(?)–

PERSONAL: Born c. 1957, in County Wexford, Ireland; immigrated to United States c. 1970s; married; wife a choreographer; children: two boys.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1400 65th St., Ste. 250, Emeryville, CA 94608. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Musician, playwright, and writer. Cofounder, guitarist and lead vocalist for band Black 47; recordings (with Black 47) include: Home of the Brave/Live in London, 1989; Black 47, 1992; Black 47 EP, 1993; Fire of Freedom, 1993; Home of the Brave, 1994; Green Suede Shoes, 1996; Live in New York City, 1999; Ten Bloody Years, 1999; Trouble in the Land, 2000; On Fire, 2001; New York Town, 2004; and Elvis Murphy's Green Suede Shoes, 2005. Recorded solo album Kilroy Was Here, and children's album, Keltic Kids, Pirate Moon Records, 1998.

WRITINGS:

Liverpool Fantasy (fiction; adapted from author's play of the same name), Thunder's Mouth Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Green Suede Shoes: An Irish-American Odyssey (memoir), Thunder's Mouth Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Also author of plays Liverpool Fantasy (produced in Liverpool, England) and Poetry of Stone, published in Mad Angels.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A musical, tentatively titled Transport, based on a book by Thomas Keneally about women convicts being deported from Ireland to Australia; Rockin' the Bronx, a novel set in the early 1980s Bronx.

SIDELIGHTS: Larry Kirwan is an accomplished musician whose band Black 47 has recorded numerous albums. Born in Ireland but now living in New York City, Kirwan is also the author of several plays, a novel, and a memoir. Kirwan's novel Liverpool Fantasy—based on his play of the same title—is an alternative history based on the idea that the rock band the Beatles never became famous because John Lennon quit the band in 1962. John goes on to lead an embittered life of self-doubt and unemployment; George Harrison becomes a Jesuit priest and is wracked with doubts concerning his faith in God and Man; Ringo Starr drums occasionally with the band Gerry and the Pacemakers and is the only one who remains close to John; while Paul McCartney goes on to have a successful career as a Las Vegas lounge-act star under the name Paul Montana and specializes in singing standards. All the band's members' lives appear to be failures because of unhappy marriages and other bad relationships. Then, when Paul's career seems to be on the downside, he decides to hold a Beatles reunion to play for Princess Di. The novel is set in 1987, as a fascist group called the National Front is on the verge of taking over England, and to further complicate matters, one of the group's leaders is John's son Julian Lennon.

In a review of Liverpool Fantasy in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, John Dolen wrote that "Kirwan's edgy storytelling is by turns meticulous, raw, bawdy and heart-rending." Dolen also wrote, "This history is so real, that by the end of this novel, you may have nearly forgotten the other." A Kirkus Reviews contributor felt that the novel is not entirely successful, but noted that it contains "moments of real vision, pathos and poetry." Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle Online, Steven H. Silver commented: "Kirwan is strongest when he is providing a character study of his four main characters." Silver also felt that "Kirwan does a good job of getting into the heads of people who feel that they may have missed their best chance and now have a chance to revisit it."

In his memoir Green Suede Shoes: An Irish-American Odyssey Kirwan takes the reader from his birth in County Wexford, Ireland, where he grew up in a loving Catholic family, to his move to the United States in the 1970s and his ensuing career as a musician and writer. In New York he meets an assortment of Irish expatriates, such as the writers Frank and Malachy McCourt, and eventually starts the band Black 47, which becomes a cult band in the Bronx and goes on to produce several critically acclaimed albums. Referring to the narrative in Green Suede Shoes as "lively," a Kirkus Reviews contributor also noted that, "describing his youth, he relies on vivid, memorable language and frequently irreverent images, as he does throughout."

Kirwan told CA: "I liked story-telling, having grown up in a culture that valued this tradition. I always seemed to have this need or desire to create—whether in song-writing, playwrighting or writing novels. Hemingway was an inspiration as are Yeats and Joyce. Henry Miller too, though for different reasons.

"Being on the road with Black 47, I tend to take any spare moment I can for writing. I'm never guaranteed a full day to luxuriate in the task, so must grab what spare time I can. The most surprising things I have discovered as a writer are my abject limitations, first and foremost, and the sheer thrill of creating something that wasn't there before I set down to work on it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Kirwan, Larry, Green Suede Shoes: An Irish-American Odyssey, Thunder's Mouth Press (New York, NY), 2005.

PERIODICALS

Billboard, June 6, 1998, Moira McCormick, review of recording Keltic Kids, p. 75.

Entertainment Weekly, March 19, 1993, Greg Sandow, "Black and Tan and Green All Over," discusses Black 47, p. 60.

Guitar Player, May, 1993, Jas Obrecht, "Black 47: No Sham Rock," p. 16.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2003, review of Liverpool Fantasy, p. 560; January 15, 2005, review of Green Suede Shoes: An Irish-American Odyssey, p. 102.

Publishers Weekly, May 26, 2003, review of Liverpool Fantasy, p. 49.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, July 17, 2003, John Dolen, review of Liverpool Fantasy.