Author Kim Curran felt out of control with anger until her next protagonist, The Morrigan, became a conduit for her rage and showed her the freedoms of ageing ungracefully
Writing a book about her rage and The Morrigan became a source of revenge for author Kim Curran. Graphic: Eoin Flynn
It’s spring 2020, the height of lockdown, and I am in my garden looking for something else to smash. I have been signed off work with burnout, which doesn’t feel quite accurate. All I know is that I am really very angry — with the world, generally, and with the previous owners of my garden and their obsession with concrete rockeries, specifically. And hitting things with a 7lb sledgehammer is the only thing that’s helping. It will be three years before I finally work out what’s happening to me. For now, I spy a particularly smug-looking gnome and let swing.
I have always been what people at best have called ‘passionate’. At worst, ‘feisty’. Which is to say, angry. Righteously so. Even from a young age, I would get into a fury over injustices, both real and perceived. But when I hit my mid-40s, something shifted. My seething rage became more unpredictable. Untethered. And worst of all, untempered by empathy. I was angry all the time. About everything.
