{"id":2906,"date":"2018-04-17T16:13:52","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T16:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jameslawless.net\/?p=2906"},"modified":"2018-04-17T16:13:52","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T16:13:52","slug":"critically-acclaimed-novel-peeling-oranges-now-in-german","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/?p=2906","title":{"rendered":"Critically acclaimed novel Peeling Oranges now in German"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The critically acclaimed novel Peeling Oranges is now translated into German in a wonderfully accurate rendition by Udo Fischer. Read a sample or buy at https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Das-Sch%C3%A4len-Orangen-James-Lawless\/dp\/1547522720\/ref=sr_1_2_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523978428&sr=8-2&keywords=james+lawless or https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Das-Sch%C3%A4len-von-Orangen-German\/dp\/1547522720\/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1523978604&sr=1-9 or for Kindle https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Das-Sch%C3%A4len-von-Orangen-German-ebook\/dp\/B07C5PMTFB\/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1523978428&sr=8-2 for Kobo https:\/\/www.kobo.com\/ie\/en\/ebook\/das-schalen-von-orangen Peeling Oranges is also brilliantly translated into Spanish at https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Pelando-naranjas-Spanish-James-Lawless-ebook\/dp\/B00R8OU9OI\/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&qid=1523978822&sr=8-22&keywords=james+lawless
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nand in excellent Italian \"\"<\/a> at https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Sbucciando-Arance-Italian-James-Lawless-ebook\/dp\/B00R8OU2UO\/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 and in stunning Swedish
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n at https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Skala-Apelsiner-Swedish-James-Lawless-ebook\/dp\/B00QY13LJ6\/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 It is In the original English at https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Peeling-Oranges-James-Lawless-ebook\/dp\/B00J4O37IU\/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1523978756&sr=8-17&keywords=james+lawless and as an ebook on various devices at https:\/\/www.smashwords.com\/books\/view\/746476
\nPeeling Oranges tells the story of how Derek Foley, while sifting through his late father\u2019s diaries and his mother\u2019s correspondence with an IRA man, discovers that Patrick Foley, a diplomat in Franco\u2019s Spain, was not really his father. Derek\u2019s mother, who is ailing, is unwilling to discuss the past, forcing her son on a quest that will plunge him into the early history of Irish diplomacy, taking him to Spain and later to Northern Ireland, until he discovers who his real father was \u2014 with tragic consequences. Peeling Oranges is a novel full of personal and political intrigue, fraught with ideology, as it intersects the histories of two emergent nations \u2014 Ireland and Spain. It is also a beautiful and lyrically written love story of childhood sweethearts \u2014 the apolitical Derek and the passionate nationalist, Sin\u00e9ad N\u00ed Sh\u00failleabh\u00e1in.
\n\u201cA book to lose oneself in. I highly recommend it.\u201d Gabriel Byrne
\n“In the vast sea of fiction Peeling Oranges is a true hidden gem. A thrilling \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605” Malka at Contemporary Books.
\nPeeling Oranges, extract.
\nAs a kid I kept thinking the insurance man was my father. Not that I knew him mind (I only met him the once), but I heard him often enough. I can remember my mother\u2019s voice pleading with him. Was it over money? We weren\u2019t poor, although my father \u2013 my real father that is \u2013 was dead. He had been a diplomat, so he didn\u2019t exactly leave us destitute. But I got it into my head that my mother hadn\u2019t the money to pay the insurance man and he sought payment in other ways. I should say at this stage that my mother was an uncommonly beautiful woman. Everyone\u2019s mother is beautiful I know in the eyes of her offspring, but Mam\u2019s beauty was universally acknowledged. When in her prime, her bright blue eyes and svelte figure attracted many suitors which, apart from the insurance man, included medical students, members of the corps diplomatique and even an IRA man. The last mentioned was a friend of her older brother, Tom\u00e1s.
\n\tShe found out that Uncle Tom\u00e1s was a member of the IRA one day when, as a young girl, she was tidying the house for Muddy (my grandmother) and discovered his revolver in a hollowed-out book. It\u2019s in my late father\u2019s study now among real books, like a sort of heirloom.
\n\tShe tried to deny or at least play down any republican involvement later in her life. However, she always had a soft spot for Michael Collins and frequently spoke of the waste of such a \u2018fine strap of a man\u2019. All this of course happened before she settled down and married the diplomat, Patrick Foley. Well, not that she really did settle down.
\n\tWith the insurance man there was shouting and arguing and a familiarity not common for mere commercial transactions \u2013 that\u2019s probably why I thought he was my father; well, I had no role model to go by. My real father died when I was two, or so I\u2019m told.
\n\t I should point out that the shouting was on the man\u2019s part, for my mother was gentle and rarely raised her voice. I was very close to her, at least I thought I was. As the only male member in the family I felt my role was to protect her. I went into the room once when the insurance man was berating her and she was in tears. I saw a giant before me. I remember big black boots, very shiny. And when I looked up I saw this bushy red beard which frightened me. Beards were for hiding behind. Santa only wore a beard so that children wouldn\u2019t recognise him, but he took it off with his boots and his outfit when he went home. Every kid knew that. Beards were for big occasions. Beards were not for ordinary things like insurance collecting.
\n\t He fell silent when I came into the room. He was taken aback. Then he smiled at me, but when he tried to pat me on the head, I lifted a poker from the fireplace and lunged at him.
\n\t\u2018What have you done to my mother?\u2019 I shouted.
\n\tHe fended off the blows and held both my arms tightly, rendering them impotent, left hanging like the words in the gunbook, and the poker fell to the ground.
\n\t\u2018Someday when I\u2019m bigger I\u2019ll kill you, you bastard.\u2019
\n\t\u2018Now now bastard Derek, what a word coming from an buachaill beag.\u2019
\n\t At least I think he said that.
\n\tAll this is so far back in time that it seems a fabrication. But my attempted assault of him is vivid. Mam refused to talk to me about the incident; she tried to pass it off as nothing. She said that I had too fertile an imagination. She said she was not well that day and Mr Counihan was simply trying to console her. When I said he had a loud way of consoling people, she gave me one of her withering looks which ended the matter.
\n\tEver since then I realised that my mother and I were really not close at all, and soon after that incident I was sent off to boarding school in the country. <\/p>\n

The cloistered world of boarding schools engenders a strained socialisation in students (and I suppose in staff as well). One is often forced into the company of people with whom one has little or nothing in common. The loudest ethos (often the voice of a bully) predominates. I never subscribed to the notion of having to get on with everyone, because man is a social being etc. To me it implied that everyone was the same, that there was no such thing as individuality, difference or freedom of choice in a person. Such qualities were suppressed (often viciously by \u2018social man\u2019) on the grounds that they constituted anti-social behaviour. But in my solitary studies I discovered that accomplishments in human endeavour were achieved by individuals, often against collective, social pressure.
\n\tThe mundane reality, however, was that I carried a feeling of insecurity with me wherever I went: in my satchel, in my hurley stick, in my voice when I had to speak or read aloud. Trust is bred in an environment of love and stability. I missed out somewhere on the skill of trusting people. My pen was the only instrument that flowed freely, as if doubts themselves sought outlets through ink. I did quite well academically, particularly at history, for which I won the school gold medal.
\n\tSome of my scholastic peers were also diplomats\u2019 children, but I didn\u2019t feel at one with them. I tried many times to tell my mother that I wasn\u2019t really a diplomat\u2019s child at all. I mean Patrick was dead, and both she and I were in Ireland all the time since. It seemed a cruel form of justice to me that I should see my mother less frequently than other boys whose parents were stationed abroad. I did not mix well. I frequently took off to the library rather than have to engage even in mere phatic communication.
\n\tWe queued for sweets on Friday evenings. And on Sundays I got a double supply because I was not one of those pupils who went home at weekends. Sweets were good. Sweets could mollify that heartsinking gloom that suffused empty dormitories on damp Sunday evenings where every sound had its echo.
\n\tI remember my first year boarding, the school hired a projector. It rented the films, Mise \u00c9ire and The Mark of Zorro. It was always two films in those days; that\u2019s why Zorro was allowed, even though it was a foreign film. Raffle tickets were used for admission. I got the number eleven.
\n\tIn my class there was a small, skinny fellow with a snub nose which accounted for his nickname of Pug. He resented me because I kept to myself, because I refused to bow down to him or join his gang, and also perhaps because I had got first in the class in the history examination.
\n\tHe came strutting along the corridor one day flanked by a couple of his cronies. I greeted them in Irish as was the custom.
\n\t\u2018Here\u2019s the historian.\u2019 They taunted in English.
\n\t\u2018The piss-in-the-bed.\u2019
\n\t\u2018What have you got for us, swot?\u2019
\n\tThey pushed me against the wall and forced me to turn out my pockets. A brown paper bag and my ticket fell to the ground. One of the cronies opened the bag.
\n\t\u2018Jelly Babies. He\u2019s got Jelly Babies.\u2019
\n\tThese were not the school sweets but sweets my mother had sent from Muddy\u2019s shop.
\n\t\u2018Don\u2019t you know English sweets are not allowed?\u2019 Pug said. \u2018We\u2019ll do the historian a favour. We\u2019ll swallow the evidence so he wont be found out.\u2019
\n\tThey twisted my arm behind my back. \u2018Say thank you,\u2019 said Pug with a Jelly Baby dangling from his mouth. He saw the ticket on the ground. \u2018Legs 11.\u2019 He tore the ticket in two. \u2018Just one leg now.\u2019
\n\t\u2018I\u2019ll get you for this,\u2019 I said.
\n\tPug smiled. \u2018After school in the football field.\u2019<\/p>\n

I wanted to run away. But there is nowhere to run in a boarding school except into a field. All power left my body as Pug knocked me down and held me in a half nelson until I submitted. And it\u2019s only now in hindsight that I know why I submitted. It wasn\u2019t that he was stronger than me. I knew the fear was there all along but I could never pinpoint the cause of it. And there it was staring me in the face all the time. It\u2019s what happens when you don\u2019t feel loved. You feel you\u2019re standing on one leg.
\n\tI also learned that day why I liked history. It provided a cover. It let you off the hook. You could project your personal fears into the national psyche. You could blame other races for your own shortcomings. And nobody need ever know.
\n\tI never got to see the films. I was told by a teacher to go away and be more careful with my ticket in future. I saw re-enactments of Zorro all right, on classroom desks with rulers as swords, and for a while some pupils went around marking Z on copy books and walls. Some of them even made cardboard masks.
\n\t Pug met me again. He wore a mask, but it was easy to see it was him. He wanted to fill me in on what the film was about. It was a shame I wasn\u2019t able to go. He had a blade. The cronies opened my shirt and held my mouth, and Pug cut the letter Z on my chest.
\n\tI didn\u2019t cry. There wasn\u2019t really any pain. It was just a superficial cut. I kept my handkerchief pressed against it to save my shirt. It would stop bleeding if I stayed long enough in the library.
\n\tI looked up my first Spanish word, zorro for \u2018fox\u2019 at the back of a dictionary. It was a funny way to start learning a language, from back to front. It reminded me of our history teacher saying to us that we should learn history backwards because we leave school before we get to the present.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Peeling-Oranges-James-Lawless\/dp\/1496007646\/ref=la_B001JOXD96_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442573904&sr=1-8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The critically acclaimed novel Peeling Oranges is now translated into German in a wonderfully accurate rendition by Udo Fischer. Read a sample or buy at https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Das-Sch%C3%A4len-Orangen-James-Lawless\/dp\/1547522720\/ref=sr_1_2_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523978428&sr=8-2&keywords=james+lawless or https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Das-Sch%C3%A4len-von-Orangen-German\/dp\/1547522720\/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1523978604&sr=1-9 or for Kindle https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Das-Sch%C3%A4len-von-Orangen-German-ebook\/dp\/B07C5PMTFB\/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1523978428&sr=8-2 for Kobo https:\/\/www.kobo.com\/ie\/en\/ebook\/das-schalen-von-orangen Peeling Oranges is also brilliantly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2908,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2906\/revisions\/2908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}