Greedy DMs - novelist Megan Nolan

"Returning to Ireland, having left it, is as substantial as actually being there for people who go away."

I first met Megan Nolan on the balcony of the Russian Samovar in NYC, at someone vaguely famous’ birthday. I was smoking and ruing the $9 plus tips I’d just spent on half a can of Red Bull, poured without ceremony into a plastic cup, and she cheered me up, though I can’t remember what she said. Before then we’d followed one another on Instagram, where she mostly posted pictures of her seemingly endless supply of friends, though most especially one - Daniel.

On Wikipedia she is described as a ‘polemicist’, most likely because of an essay she wrote in the NYT insulting the English. She is the author of two novels and lots of good journalism. Occasionally, I catch her reading one of her brilliant essays on Radio 4 - which the BBC records at Carnegie Hall.

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Where are you right now?

I just left my apartment after working in bed all day, went for a run in the park, and am now in the horrible coffee shop I go to every day – “Brooklyn Perk”.

Do you write there?

Nah (or maybe I send a few emails). I can’t work in cafes, but three of my neighbourhood friends work from here so I come to bother them.

I used to write in bars sometimes when I was in London because I’d finish my day job late, and lived in a busy shared house which was too hard to work in. But post 30, combining drinking w/ working, either actively or hungover, seems a lot less possible.

Do you feel warmly toward the horribleness?

It’s hard to describe the horribleness, but yes I like it. Daniel, my best friend who lives here too, says it’s like a bus station. You can kind of do whatever. We bring in cheaper deli coffee when too broke for espresso etc.

Do you feel part of a community?

Yeah totally! I got really lucky with where my apartment is, I feel like the mayor walking around. Impossible not to bump into people, and I’ve made friends from dog walking lately.

More community than London?

For me personally, much much more than London. But I don’t think that’s an overall verdict. It’s partly a neighbourhood thing - I was living in Camberwell, which I couldn’t really afford, but had romanticised and convinced myself I needed to be there during lockdown. And while I did have a few friends there, they owned homes and were generally more settled than me. Flatbush - where I live now - is really different. It feels in flux and nourishing for people who don’t really know what they’ll be doing in 3 years. A bit scrappier and more muddled or something? Social routines are less fixed.

I lived in the London suburbs during the pandemic and all my neighbours owned their houses. That was so alienating.

Did you ever live in Dublin?

Between 18 and 24. It was a very difficult and chaotic time in my life and so I hate Dublin, though I don’t think that’s Dublin’s fault. But I get icked out returning and so I can go for about 48 hours tops, and then I get really sad. I value going there for a day or two at Christmas and seeing my friends, and going to the same restaurant me and my old friend Isadora have been going to since 2008. But then I have to JET!