Diagnosing the disorder of multiple author identities

Should you use a pen name, a nome de plume, or stick to your real self? Who are you? Whoooo are you? To quote The Who. (The who? say the young)

Anyone who really knows me (turn your backs now) knows that I am Ruby Barnes, Ger Mayes, John (the) Baptist, Turnip, Mark Turner, to name but a few. Clever, huh? No! Not clever at all. Very dim for an author.

I just finished reading Kristen Lamb's excellent book We Are Not Alone—The Writer’s Guide to Social Media. Great stuff, a bit like riding a piebald bareback (no offence, Kristin, it’s an Irish expression, my wife's from Tallaght). Wild, exhilarating, keep hold and you feel like you’re flying. The bad news is that the old Turnip, erm, I mean Ruby, has been doing it all wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

To quote Kristen ‘It is absolutely crucial for you to brand your name...A moniker can absolutely kill your platform.’

It was definitely the best $9 I’ve spent recently (except for the Subway Meaty Italian foot long last Saturday, but that was a transitory joy). I do feel like I’ve been kicked in the author nuts. I feel like I’ve caught my tackle on the elbow of an expert. As my brother said after a scathing £100 professional review of an early novel draft, he would have kicked me in the nuts for nothing, just had to ask. And like a true friend, his offer still stands. But boy did I need Kristen’s dainty little stiletto where I kept my darlings. Multiple identities are for the asylum. Author name is brand is identity. End of story. Not quite, there’s more but that’s for another day when Ruby has got his, erm, her act together.

So, there’s gonna be some changes around here. Uhuh, yessir. And yes Ma’am. Big changes. Well, lots of little, rather complicated changes. And what about the bright idea of having an androgynous author name and then putting up an avatar of me in a cowboy hat? Kristen Lamb? Kristen?!

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Wellington Memorial, Phoenix Park, Dublin (world second tallest man-made obelisk!)

An extract from Peril. Ger's in a mess, still reeling from the beating...

In the morning, still a little spaced out, I make it to the 8:37 train in one piece. For a change I take a seat facing the back of another and, Jo’s borrowed MP3 player connected, close my eyes to the sound of Norah Jones. When I next open them, I’m the only one on the train except for a Chinese guy who is collecting rubbish left behind by the now departed passengers.

 It feels like I’ve been away from Dublin for a long time. The Liffey is swollen and charging seaward, like a huge artery full of brown blood. No sign of all the usual debris that clutters the river bed at low flow: shopping trolleys, traffic cones, children’s bicycles, dead Romanians.

There’s a breeze crossways over Heuston bridge, an earthy smell leaps over the Luas tracks. I don’t hear the music until I’m across the other side and then I stop short, both captivated and cautious.

Ilie’s face is serene as he coaxes the melodies from his guitar’s strings. He sees my shoes and lifts his gaze to mine. I hesitantly smile at him. This is real, he’s here playing guitar. It’s how things were before. I only have two Euros in cash so I bend and place it in his cup. He says nothing and there’s no change to his expression. This can’t be the man who attacked me behind the station, if it ever even happened. His crippled leg is intact, the crooked knee cradling the round swell of his guitar.

I straighten and step forward but then two things happen at once. The music stops and I let out a shout. Something hard has struck me painfully in the shin. Stepping back, I stoop to rub my shin and see a plastic carrier bag. Ilie is holding it to block my path. He drops the bag to the ground with a clank and parts the plastic to show something metal and heavy inside, bent and stained dark brown in several places. It looks very much like a murder weapon.

Self preservation tells me I should grab the bag from Ilie and hurl it into the Liffey, but my body is not responding to the instinct. Instead I start to back away, only to find a hand on each of my arms. Two youths flank me, clad in sports gear. They’re both taller than Ilie but the family resemblance is unmistakable.

I look around the street, hoping for some authority figure to rescue me from my predicament. Ilie barks a little laugh and rises surprisingly easily from the ground with the aid of his crutch. He holds up the evidence bag and says “Follow me.”

We move in the direction of Phoenix Park and I have to hurry to keep up with his surprising pace. Heavy traffic forces us to wait in a gaggle at the Coyningham Road pedestrian crossing. I’m hemmed in by the three of them. On a good day I would fancy my chances in a fair fight with any one of them, maybe even two, but it’s not a good day. My brain is floating in a bowl of soup and the old bones feel detached from their muscles.

The man turns green and we shuffle forward across the junction. Now we are immediately outside the new Criminal Courts of Justice and there’s no shortage of authority figures to appeal to. Garda Síochána cars are everywhere, as are TV news vans, reporter crews setting up cameras and testing microphones. There must be a high profile criminal case in the offing. That could be me. Two officers on the top step of the entrance gaze curiously over us from the saddles of their mountain bikes. Ilie looks gives me a narrow-eyed look over his shoulder. Make your choice. Us or the law. I don’t break my stride.

Once in the Park, I let Ilie walk ahead and develop a distance between us. There’s a steady flow of cars down the middle of Chesterfield Avenue, the thoroughfare that transects these 1750 acres of parkland. It’s quarter past ten in the morning and I wonder where all the traffic is going at this hour. The kerb is lined with parked cars of every size, shape, age and colour. A car thieves’ paradise if it weren’t for the ever-present law officers, two of whom are slowing up the traffic as their huge horses clop steadily along the tarmac. Once the horses pass by a shove on my shoulder brings me back to reality. The two lads are right behind.

Ilie weaves slightly along the footpath, avoiding the drooping branches of trees heavy with fresh growth. Beech trees at a guess, I’m no horticulturist. As I endeavour to follow the scampering Romanian musician, Wellington’s Monument rises hugely up on our left. Several degenerates are sunning themselves on the giant, sparkling granite steps whilst drinking cans of beer. More Gards on foot are heading towards the morning drunks. I consider again the choice between incarceration and Romanian revenge, but Ilie has second guessed my hesitation. He stops, turns and holds the bag aloft. I’m firmly in his grip.

We move on apace. A warm breeze helps the sweat to form on my forehead and I get a whiff of something earthy. Can it be me? Or is it my escorts? A burst of resonant snorts and trumpeting explains it: we’re about to pass the African residents of Dublin Zoo. Like them, I’m enclosed in a yard of my own shite.

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Get yer free sample of Ger Mayes, only a few left and when all these free samples of The Rise and Fall of Ger Mayes are gone, they're gone.

What's a Kindle? Why can't you read a sample without having to register on amazon and buy a kindle or download Kindle for PC?

Well, you can get a sample of Ger Mayes and his misdeeds here, straight onto your screen: Ruby Barnes webpage .
Enjoy (if that's the right word).

The handshake

Gerard and David April 1965



An extract from Peril

My father’s appetite for handshakes was infinite.

A first memory is of sitting in my shorts and braces on the Long John table for a sibling photograph, and shaking his big, cool hand. And my baby brother David, not yet able to sit up unaided, having his hand shaken as mum held him up for the ritual.

‘Goodnight, Gerard.’

‘Night, daddy.’

‘Goodnight, David.’

Mum did kiss us, on the forehead.

Our goodnight handshake was physically the closest I ever got to my father, except for a series of punches when we had our first teenager versus adult confrontation over a table-tennis ball.

Hmm, I hear the Freudians amongst you. Problems with intimacy and emotion. Not entirely accurate. As we grew into little men there was intimacy. Hours spent together down in the shed, working all kinds of wood into different shapes. Dad knew young hands would struggle to work hardwood with hand tools, so he started us on balsa softwood and then we moved on to white deal and pine. Whilst other kids were swinging in the playground, David and I were in full attack across our quarter acre garden. My Saracen’s scimitar whirled against his sturdy Crusader’s sword, blades as sharp as wood can be.

‘Re-sharpen, re-sharpen,’ David would call when our finely honed edges became dented.

No doubt the neighbourhood of retirees was annoyed to hell by our noisy antics as David and I were the only kids in the street. Mum and dad had moved the family to an affluent retirement area, a zone of natural wisdom. Next door Dennis, a retired bank manager, was building the concrete hull of his dream boat in a garage. He built it too wide to get out of the garage. How wise was that?

We played sports, but never with other kids. Just us and dad, at weekends. Dad had good eye to hand coordination, as did we, but what he didn’t have was two functioning legs. As a child he had contracted polio and his right leg was grotesquely withered. This led to a strange gallop when he had to run, and a tendency to lunge with his weak leg. According to him, this had lent itself to fencing and boxing at university. No team sports.

The surgeon’s remodelling had reshaped his foot many years earlier but the result was continuous wear and tear due to an unnaturally high instep. He was always at his foot, scratching and peeling the dry, hard skin from the ball and heel. That gave me a phobia of other people’s bare feet. Unless they belong to a beautiful woman.

But dad’s interest in one-on-one sports made sense to me. I could see how he would have had to defend himself from bullies throughout his life.

The first week in high school I found myself under attack. A tall, scruffy boy named Daly spat all over my new school blazer as it hung in the sports changing rooms. The gap between his front teeth was perfect for spraying spittle and he had all the lads laughing at my expense. Daly was bottom of the barrel and looking for someone to exchange places with.

‘After school, Daly,’ I said.

When sports period was over, the tough guys tried to get us to fight in the classroom but I resisted. Daly looked worried.

‘Let’s forget it, Mayes,’ he said.

I shook my head. The insult had to be paid for.

At the home bell I followed him down the field to the school buses and, just before he tried to board his bus, I kicked him repeatedly in the thigh until he went for me. Then I pulled on my black leather gloves and went to work.
Daly hadn’t a clue. I danced around him, in the lopsided style of dad, and let fly with clinically accurate punches, mostly at eyes and mouth. The exchange was almost soundless and he didn’t land a blow. It felt so very good.
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