Grá Go Mor

Remembering my friend and mentor, the fiercely original Ken Bruen (1951 - 2025)

I woke up this morning to the news that we lost Ken Bruen.

Ken was one of my favorite writers, but also a friend and mentor to Baby Novelist Me. He was a friend and mentor to a lot of us, always making you feel like you were the most important person in any room you happened to share. Ken’s style was unmistakeable; his prose was so lean yet evocative it often read like poetry. He was one of the rare true originals in the crime fiction field, and I’m heartbroken that his darkly hilarious voice has fallen silent. Coincidentally, just two days ago I picked up his latest Jack Taylor novel in paperback, Galway Confidential, from Vroman’s, eager to see what Ken’s long-suffering private eye was up to these days. I thought I might drop Ken a line. It had been way too long.

I first met Ken via email more then 20 years ago, when I was asked to interview him novelist Dave Zeltserman’s Hardluck Stories magazine. This was no hit-and-run Q&A; our exchange quickly became a sprawling saga (as you’ll soon see). I’m sharing the much-abridged interview here because I believe it has vanished from the internet, and I wanted you to hear Ken’s voice as I got to know him. He always signed his emails “grá go mor,” meaning “big love” in Gaelic. Right back at you, Ken.

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Ken Bruen: The Hardluck Stories Interview

by Duane Swierczynski

What began as an innocent “hey, let’s lob a question or two via e-mail” with Ken Bruen—the Galway-based author of the Edgar-nominated The Guards, the first in his series about alcoholic ex-cop Jack Taylor—slowly morphed into a freewheeling conversation that spanned 26,000 words and covered such weighty subjects as family, sin, God, crime, music and booze.

If you look up the phrase “suffers fools gladly,” I think you’ll find a picture of Ken.

26,000 words.

He’s gotta be fucking tired of me by now.

I’ve been a hardcore Bruen fan ever since picking up the trade paperback of The White Trilogy on a whim. I was stunned by how much raw energy he packed into so few words. In Ken’s world, evil is a force of nature rather than a plot contrivance. You never know who’s going to get hurt in one of his Roberts/Brant police procedurals (including Blitz, Vixen and the forthcoming Calibre) his Jack Taylor books (which includes The Killing of the Tinkers, The Magdalen Martyrs, The Dramatist and the forthcoming Priest) or his stand-alone crime novels (mostly recently Dispatching Baudelaire). When Dave Zeltserman approached me with the idea of doing a short interview with Ken, I couldn’t say yes fast enough.

“Short”… yeah, right. See, the problem is that Ken is the rare interview subject who asks questions back… and really cares about the answer. “Isn’t this just the best interview ever?” Ken wrote at one point. “We can get it in the Guinness book of records. It has everything—saddness, compassion, smart ass-ness, feeling…” He even took the time teach me handy Gaelic noir phrases, including:

ta tu tur ais: “you’re back—couldn’t cut it abroad, eh?”

bowsie: thug/shithead/accountant

sin sceal eile: “no shit, buddy?”

fauraigh: “chill out”

airgead: “the bucks, the green”

gunna: “gun, of course”

bhi curamach: “be careful out there, just like in Hill Street Blues”

Don’t worry; I’m not going to slam you with the full 26,000-word version. But to give you a feel for our rolling, no-holds barred conversation, I’ve left Ken’s text alone. I fixed typos, but otherwise, this is Ken how I’ve come to know him: clever, passionate, thoughtful, heartfelt. (My own words, of course, have been massaged into perfect slices of inquisitiveness.)

I’m still sending Ken questions, by the way. And God love him, he’s still answering.

26,000 words plus.

Maybe someday he’ll work up the courage to tell me to fuck off.

Ken Bruen (center), flanked by Charles Ardai and Reed Farrel Coleman, Manhattan, late September 2005.

Duane Swierczynski: Usually, an interviewer will ask a crime writer who he/she reads. I feel like I already know, based on the cool quotes and epigrams from your novels. You're a master of the crime novel, and at the same time, you seem like its biggest fan.

Ken Bruen: Yes, I began to read crime fiction as a teenager and it was always American. I take a lot of flak for my continued argument that not only did the Americans invent it, they continue to do it better than anybody. My first crime novel, RILKE ON BLACK, was an attempt to superimpose the American hardboiled on an English Setting.....

Later on, after an education from Raymond Chandler, Goodis, James M. Cain, Hammett, I came across, in the early 80s, Elmore Leonard, Ellroy, Joseph Koenig and the dialogue, knew that’s what I wanted to do, George V.Higgins.....James Crumley, they set me free from the tired bullshit of English Booker worthies, Irish Literary mafias, pretentious quality novels…

I’m not a crime writer hoping to graduate to literary work. I just hope to keep writing the best crime novels I can.

DS: What is it about the American style that appealed to you — the voice? the clipped language? the obsessions?

KB: What appealed to me about the American mystery novels was firstly the voice.........a no shit, take no prisoners tone. I love that. Secondly, it seemed to be from The Streets and I’ve been called the Street writer and.....the gutter writer....and best of all, in an interview... Benign thug...

Secondly, the sheer pace of the American writing, you could feel the rush, matched the way my mind operates.

And of course, the dialogue, fresh, in your face, un-apologetic.

I love Beckett and with my novels, I wanted to strip the narrative to the bone. I loved Maigret when he said......how do you describe the weather? If it’s raining, he said, it’s raining......

Spillane when he said he used whiskey as the drink of choice as he couldn’t spell Courvoisier...

DS: Was your compact style something that you developed over time? Or was it in full bloom for your first crime novel, RILKE ON BLACK?

KB: Here’s a confession..........I wrote poetry for eight years before I tackled fiction.......if you throw a stone in Ireland, you’ll hit a poet , usually a bad one and I was no exception.....but it was a terrific apprenticeship as I learned the value of compression and not to waste a single word, to hoard them like gold dust and ration them like prayers.

Yes, RILKE was written in that style and tis less I write to try and mean more......that’s pure Irish logic.

DS: Let’s go back in a time a bit — to your 20s. What led you to teach English in various foreign countries? Wanderlust?

KB: I was crazy about a girl in Trinity and after four years, she dumped me, as she wanted to travel the world, I didn't. Irony time........she never went anywhere and I went to every corner of the globe.

English to be taught as a Foreign Language was in its infancy then and a friend of mine set up an agency.....I was the staff ... on paper, I seemed impressive, B.A.., M.A., PhD.... Teacher training qualification, Dip In Art.....and I was prepared to go anywhere and did. Discovered I had Tinker blood, or gypsy notions and nothing equaled the buzz of heading off to China or Africa. Teaching Military English to the Kuwaitis had to among the more surreal moments. Especially when the Iraqis came down the pike a few months later and my friends blamed me for the poor preparation. Now I’ll fess up to most things but that?. I kept journals in black leather volumes, just like Bruce Chatwin. After South America, I was so devastated, I took the 26 volumes and burned each and every one.

DS: By now, I'm sure you're weary of recounting your experiences in South America. But would you mind recapping quickly for HARDLUCK readers who don't know what happened?

KB: South America was to be the pinnacle of my teaching career, had done really well and it was the plum assignment.....went to the pub where Ronnie Biggs was supposed to hold court, he was the famous English train robber , he wasn’t there and a very violent row broke out, serious lethal stuff and I wasn’t involved by the cops rounded up the foreigners, pay back time I guess for the high life we enjoyed and we were held for four months and then deported. The experience was all the brutality, physical, mental spiritual I could ever have envisaged.....I survived by a form of catatonia whereby I retreated into my mind and couldn’t be reached......a hard place to return from

For years after I was a shattered human being and only by teaching wounded children, who’d been hellishly abused, did I start to heal and re-join the human race.

So I guess when books like THE HACKMAN BLUES are too much for some readers, at least I know where the darkness comes from..... Crime fiction was perfect for the rage I had and fueled the books, still does.

DS: How long does it take for you to write a crime novel — from the first germ of an idea to the day you mail the final galleys to your publisher?

KB: It takes me about six months to write a novel from first gem to finished product but lately, maybe age but I'm writing longer books and it's taking me near a year to do one....

[Just out] is DISPATCHING BAUDELAIRE, a stand alone about paranoia...and May is Jack...... Taylor 4........

I'm near finished the fifth Jack Taylor......Priest.......finished the new Brant which ties in with re-working of THE KILLER INSIDE ME....titled CALIBRE.

And doing third re-write of AMERICAN SKIN, about an Irish guy on the run in America and trying to pass as American.....

BLITZ comes out from St Martin’s in June and Akashic Books is bringing out BROOKLYN NOIR in June featuring Pete Hamill, Jasper Kenji, Tim Mc Loughlin and me, the only non-American....

DS: Speaking of: I was hoping you might talk a bit about how you plot your novels — in advance, with detailed outlines, or off the cuff?

KB: Some of the books I plot or a line will come to me....like “I’m not a criminal”.....and thus began RILKE… THE GUARDS series is to chart the story of Galway and in minor sense, New Ireland.

THE HACKMAN BLUES was in direct response to a friend of mine who died from AIDS and he asked me to write a book of rage.....I did.

Or like Elmore Leonard, I wait for the characters to tell me how the story goes......Falls was meant to die in the very first book but she wouldn’t lie down. Ed Mc Bain told me Steve Carella was to die in the second of his series! What do us writers know?

To finish on note of absurdity, The city council in Galway yesterday proposed that the new city centre park be called .......Ken Bruen Garden!!!!!!! Yikes.

DS: Do you write in the morning, afternoon, or night? On computer, typewriter, or pen-and-paper? To music? With alcohol? Can Phyl and Grace [Ken’s wife and daughter] be chatting in the next room, or do you need absolute silence? What do you have hanging on the walls next your writing area?

KB: Here is my work routine.......7.00 every morning, I’m at my desk, surrounded by books, I’ve a cube given to me by an ex-marine which reads.....”Semper Fi”.....and above my desk is what I regard as the curse of Somerset Maugham, he didn’t intend it as such but to me it is........it reads.........”The compulsion to write and NO TALENT”.......Jesus.......that keeps me humble.....also, I have a pot of coffee and no one, not even Grace comes near me till I’m done....round 9.00.....even if I write nothing, I’m there, the blank screen before me.....I love what Arthur Miller said...at 70, he'd done all the very best writing a man could ask and still every morning, he’s at the desk and when asked what he feels, he said....”pure terror”

I only learned in Vegas last October that Walter Mosely does a thing I do myself......at night, I read what I’ve written into a hand held recorder and it gives me a chance to fulfill the wannabe actor, I do all the accents and if the music/rhythm isn’t there, if it sounds phony, I bin it.

Sometimes I strap on the Walkman and listen to the razor blade music, the whiny country and western that they give free razor blades when you buy it.....esp if I’m going to kill a character.

I never drink when writing or smoke weed or anything though a well known friend of mine can’t write without hash. The motive I get most fuel from is RAGE...... man, it sure unblocks writers block.....Billy Connolly who used to be hilarious said he worked purely on rage.....now he’s happy and his work is gone to shit. Phyl says there seems liitle prospect of me getting happy in the next twenty years!!!!!!

DS: It's interesting that you say rage fuels your work. This is not to say that I don't see it in your novels: they are full of fury. In fact, I half-expected you to be a Brant type of individual, telling me to go f*** myself if I were to step out of line. (Who knows? You still might.)

That said, I still believe that suffering informs the best fiction. Is it important to maintain a constant low-level state of unease?

In other words: Are you really as unhappy as Phyl says you are?

KB: I went to Trinity in Dublin and it took me another twenty years to recover from a so called education and unlearn all the garbage.....but it was good too as It was such freedom to read in a structured way and actually be studying books I’d have sold my soul to read anyway. Plus, Trinity was amazing then. My contemporaries were Dick Spring, Paul Mc Guinness (U2), and Chris de Burgh—who was a painful ass even then

I was laughing when you wondered if I was like Brant, a Sunday Times journalist came to Dublin to interview a while back and wouldn't believe I was Ken Bruen.......she expected a biker/thug with tattoos and moaned........but you have manners!!!!! Isn’t that magical....”You have manners”

Do I think suffering is necessary......well, it certainly informs the art and best of all, I hope it instills compassion

Melancholy is a part of the Irish psyche, must be all the rain but I get a buzz out of a certain kind of sweet sadness........I love to laugh and am not quite the miserable git I paint but I do draw on the pain to infuse the writing, like Sylvia Plath said........here is my territory......

I do believe that you appreciate joy more if you have suffered pain and the greater the agony, the more deeply felt the joy. Hard tradeoff though.

DS: Let’s talk about Jack Taylor. You're now up to book four in the series. Is the series your answer to the classic private eye cycle? And do you see the Taylor novels going on indefinitely? (On a similar note, do you see the Brant novels going on indefinitely, a la the 87th?)

KB: I see Brant and company running for ages, mainly because I enjoy writing it so much......I don’t know about Jack Taylor. I’ve finished no 5 and have yet to decide on a sixth. AMERICAN SKIN introduces a new series and I'd love to think I could keep the three series going, wouldn’t that be something, but I also like to throw a standalone into the mix as is DISPATCHING BAUDELAIRE, due in April. And Brant 7 is coming to me these days.

DS: I'd love to hear more about AMERICAN SKIN, if you don't mind divulging a detail or two. Especially now that you mention you have a series in mind.

KB: AMERICAN SKIN is about Steve Blake, ( Blake is one of the 12 tribes of Galway, like Bruen, and oddly enough, our house was built by the Blakes.....) who gets involved in a paramilitary operation that goes horribly wrong, the opening chapter has my best ever psycho, my agent said he had to go and get a large bourbon after reading the first 6 pages and says it’s too noir for America, luckily the publisher thinks the American audience is more than able.

Blake goes to America to re-invent himself as an American, in the face of so many Americans coming to Ireland wanting to be Irish.....his attempts to learn American go badly wrong and not even the cover of white trailer trash ....Sherri can help........needless to say, things go very very black very quickly.....the lead psycho is a Tammi Wynette uber-fan. I cant tell you any more lest I spoil the savage narrative.

“American Skin” is the title of Bruce Springsteen’s song with the refrain.....41 shots... which dovetails nicely with the plot twists.

DS: If AMERICAN SKIN was deemed "too noir for America," then tell me the name of the bookstore who will stock it first because I want to start camping out in the front door.

KB: I love Bruce Springsteen, did a story for the book on his song, “Meeting Across the River”........real hard ass one, my story, not the song, though the song is as close to a perfect complete mystery narrative as it gets. The paramilitaries are the I.R.A. and Steve, to help a friend gets involved in a disastrous heist in Ireland.......the irony of the book is that one of the main characters is Steve’s best friend, Tommy who dies in the first few pages, with him, I wanted to examine the whole Buddy concept.

Dade, the main villain, named after a jolt in Dade county jail, where they served great pancakes, steals the book and the agent wanted me to water him down as he’s too ferocious. Dade wouldn’t let it happen!

Steve, in treacherous act, the worst sin in Irish eyes, did a stint in British army.

DS: How tough was it to sell your first crime novel? Did the fact that you'd sold three mainstream novels ease the process?

KB: My first crime novel was accepted immediately by Serpent’s Tail but it was 18 months before they published. My literary novels didn’t help a jot, not a bit

DS: Have editors ever pressured you to cook up a big fat doorstopper of a novel? Everybody tells me the trend is 100,000 word monsters, but my favorite novels tend to be short, Gold Medal-length thrillers. Has an editor ever said, "Great, Ken, but can you give us 10,000 more words?"

KB: Yes, they are always asking for a doorstop novel but as I hate them, I can’t......who has a lifetime to waste, if I had a life to waste, Like Orson Wells, I’d give it to cocaine.

I’m with you and the Gold Medal size.........Random House just sent me the new Jason Starr to blurb and his books are the perfect size..... Great book, titled TWISTED CITY, it’s uncannily like the story of BAUDELAIRE.......swear to God.

Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, Manhattan, late September 2025

DS: What do your parents/relatives think about your novels? It seems that crime novels have a bit more respectability to them these days. But that could be wishful thinking. Do crime writers get any respect in Galway? (Considering the Ken Bruen Gardens, I'd have to think the answer is yes.)

KB: No, crime writing was frowned on till about two years ago....I said in an Irish Times interview, crime writing is suddenly going to become respectable........and sure enough, this year alone, over twenty first Irish crime novels........for years the Irish lit mafia ignored me, no invitations to Festivals, no reviews, nada......they said, he can write, he has a doctorate, was a teacher for over twenty years.....why wont he write lit......

I was invited to a Festival by MISTAKE a few years back......and then they asked for me to be removed......was I hurt.....no, truly, it meant there was no point of reference for me, thus freedom, we have a huge body of Lit but no Crime lit....and I identified with Derek Raymond who said.........for years, I had the down escalator all to myself

I'm a total oddity to my family......no one ever read a book, no books ever in our house, my parents hoped I'd get sense and get a job with a pension......when my Dad died, I had to clear out his stuff, the family bible beside his bed and it fell out of my hand.......every review every word ever written about me in there, and I believe he knew I'd be the one to have his bible and it was his way of saying.......you did okay kid.

My Mum died a year ago.....she used to say......Ken lives in another room to the rest of the world.........

More Irish for you… Ta mo croi briste.... it means my heart is broken, my beloved brother died four years ago, a derelict alcoholic in the Australian outback, he was the best friend I ever had

DS: I’m sorry to hear about your brother. I'd like to hear more about the two of you, unless it's something you don't want to dredge up right now.

KB: Phyl lost her brother and sister to alcoholism.....the Jack Taylor books have been accused of taking the fun out of drinking and it’s deliberate.....enough books show the fun, I wanted one series to tell the truth, esp about Ireland......no one can say Jack has a high ol time.....I’m a huge fan of Fred Exley

Noel, my brother looked like David Cassidy, and was smart bright and everything came easily to him, women, success, friends, , he was married three times, owned pubs! in New York, London, Australia......and told me......it means nothing, he believed in nothing save our friendship, Tommy, the dead friend in AMERICAN SKIN is Noel........when we brought his body home, he had the reviews of my books and a photo of Grace (who he never met), that was all.

I'm listening to Johnny Cash, the Nine Inch Nails song.....HURT.........fuckin killer lyrics. AND.....Iris DeMent, her first album, My Life........has the best song on grief, on the death of her father I ever heard and moves me to tears.....called “My Life” ....line goes......took a cold one out into the yard, had to bite down and swallow hard

Yeah, we know about biting down and swallowing hard.......

DS: Speaking of cold ones… do you have a drink of choice?

KB: I love to drink beer, and especially Bud.....I know, I should be a Guinness drinker but it’s so heavy in the gut......with Bud, I can have a long evening, build a nice mellow high and still be in the game.....

Maybe close the evening with a shot of Jameson......I remember doing boilermakers in New York as a young guy and thinking it was like, the best.

Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water, finishing the three new books, I'd have a rest, the 6th Jack Taylor came down the pike, title first.....CROSS..... and the plot unfolding....no rest for the wicked and the Brant vying for space too......no wonder I like Goodis....mad as a march hare meself.

DS: From the titles alone, some of the Jack Taylor novels seem to be infused with Catholicism: martyrs, priest, cross. How much of an influence is religion on your crime writing? (You’re speaking to a former altar boy, by the way.)

KB: The fifth Jack Taylor, PRIEST.......deals with all the Boston like scandal we’ve had here in recent years.....sure to get me banished.

Catholicism is huge influence in the Jack Taylor stories as it’s so much part of our history and of course, I’m fascinated by guilt, remorse and redemption, the power the Church had here and the spectacular fall from ... dare I say Grace......I too was an altar boy and at an early age was sent to a boarding school, run by Franciscans, years of pure and unadulterated hell, south America was easier......truly!....as I was such a queer silent child, they treated me like dirt and wrote reports which I still have saying I was borderline retarded.

And if I was real lucky I’d maybe, be able to get a job as a dishwasher.....when I got my doctorate.....what a moment....They shattered my belief in myself, shaky anyway, and I’ve never recovered from that........what they did do, though unwittingly, was teach me that the only person to rely on was me.....and did that all my life, I still have nightmares about being back there.

They filled me with a sense of uselessness and a self hatred that has never quite gone away...to never have liked myself, that is a real tragedy.

Yet, I have two great friends, one a priest and a nun......Last year I did a week of reading extracts from my non fiction book on the radio, lots of stuff on spirituality and I got huge mail.....and relics!....from clergy all over the country

I wear a gold Miraculous Medal, always have done and the animals in South America, took everything else but were afraid to touch the medal....

DS: A lot of my experiences from Catholic School also left me feelng a bit like dirt. Maybe this is rule #17B in the Catholic handbook: “Make children loathe selves whenever possible. Mention the fact that Jesus died for them to rub in the guilt a bit more.” But then again, if we hadn’t been though Catholic school, maybe we’d be sitting here, merrily e-mailing about flowers and Britney Spears songs? Maybe the curse is a blessing.

KB: Isn’t it stunning that we both have that baseline of self loathing and like you, it takes so little to tip the scale....... yes, I do agree the curse is a blessing, albeit a mixed one.

I have no truck with religion as organisation but hold great store in spirituality and the dignity of the human spirit......which is why I did a Doctorate in metaphysics......always fascinated by Zen, Buddhism......my favourtie prayer is from one of my fav writers, Graham Greene, HELP MY UNBELIEF........he also said.....The Catholic knows everything about ritual and not a single thing about what goes on in the human heart. I believe there are only two sins......to hinder the growth of another human being and to hinder my own growth.