Brian O’Connell - The Personals

In order to protect privacy, some names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.

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First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

FIRST EDITION

© Brian O’Connell 2019

Illustrations © Micaela Alcaino 2019

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Cover images © shutterstock.com

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Brian O’Connell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008321345

Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008321352

Version: 2019-09-06

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Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008321345

‘Just for a second, I thought I lost myself,

And I watched my body falling,

And all the colours look brighter now.’

Brian Carey, RIP

1 Cover

2 Title Page

3 Copyright

4 Note to Readers

5 Dedication

6 Contents

7 Introduction

8 PART ONE: LOVE AND LOSS

9 When East Meets West

10 A Ringless Marriage

11 A Dress for the (Middle) Ages

12 A Chance Encounter of a Shocking Kind

13 A Long Engagement

14 Addicted to Love?

15 A Marriage Worth Waiting For

16 PART TWO: EQUIPPED FOR LIFE

17 The Car That’s Bulletproof

18 For Your Eyes Only

19 Running Up That Hill

20 PART THREE: PETS’ CORNER

21 A Monkey Is for Life – Not Just for Christmas

22 Finding Shangri-La

23 Making It Pig in Hollywood

24 PART FOUR: ARTICLES OF WAR

25 Married to the Past

26 ‘Grow Wheat – The Crop That Pays’

27 Zen and the Art of Phone Box Maintenance

28 Engineering a Step Back in Time

29 The Weight of History

30 PART FIVE: SENTIMENTAL VALUE

31 Rekindling a One in a Million Chance

32 Remains of a Detached Day

33 Giving a Doll’s House a Home

34 PART SIX: COLLECTORS

35 ‘We Are Collectors ... and We Will Die as Collectors’

36 Signing the Past Away

37 PART SEVEN: LOST CAUSES?

38 Being Frank

39 Building a Bigger Shrine

40 PART EIGHT: THIS MORTAL COIL

41 Meeting a Man About a Hearse

42 Plotting a Way Out of Grief

43 PART NINE: SIGNS OF THE TIMES

44 Nursing Hidden Desires

45 Cut-Price Counselling

46 The Homeless Hotel

47 Making Study Pay

48 Acknowledgements

49 About the Publisher

Landmarks CoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter

List of Pages iii iv v 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59606162636465 676869 707172737475 76777879808182838485868789 9192 93949596979899100101102103 104105106107108109111 113114115116 117118119120121122 123124125126127128129 130131132133134135 136137138139140141142143144145146147148149150151 153154155156157158 159160161162163164165 166167168169170171172173 175176177178179180181182 183184185186187188189190191192193 195196197198199200 201202203204205207 209210211212213214215216217218219220 221222223224225226227228229 231232233234235236237238239240241242 243244245246247248249250251252253254255 256257258259260261262263264265 266267268269270271272273274 275276277

The story goes that Ernest Hemingway and a few of his literary pals were knocking about the Algonquin Hotel in New York one night in the 1920s, before they had the joys of social media to help them avoid conversation, and they began challenging each other to write a novel using just six words. Cutting a long story short, Hemingway is said to have won hands down with the words: ‘For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.’

He’s reputed to have said that those six words were the best he ever wrote. They are loaded with life experience, love, loss, death and hope perhaps; a six-word portal into lived experience that Dorothy Parker or William Carlos Williams might have been proud of. The only problem is, while this sounds a plausible story that has been handed down over decades as literary fact, it probably never happened – or if it did happen, it almost certainly predated Hemingway and his bohemian clique. An essay about a similar short story by William R. Kane appeared in 1917 and a newspaper column by R. K. Moulton in 1921 pointed to an advert he had seen: ‘Baby Carriage for Sale: Never Used’ and informed his readers that it embodied the plot of a story. The Hemingway anecdote probably evolved over time, as a literary agent more or less admitted decades later when he said that he had first heard the story from a newspaper syndicator in the mid-1970s, more than a decade after Hemingway had died.

The point is that classified ads have long held fascination as a rich source of human experience and stories. When starting out in journalism in local media, I remember staring out of the window on a dreary Tuesday morning, stuck for story ideas for that morning’s pitching session. I shared my frustration with an older editor, who told me to try the small ads. So I did, and I have returned to them again and again in the two decades since as a source of stories.

In an era of PR handlers and press releases, of government advertising camouflaged as journalism, and carefully chosen interviewees who are sometimes over-coached and underwhelming, the world of classified ads, both online and in print, offers an unfiltered window into society.

I’ve spent almost two decades in journalism, and something interesting has happened in that time. People have never put as much of themselves out there as they do today, whether through social or digital media, or by sharing their stories or ‘opening up’ in more traditional media. There have never been so many filters or gatekeepers trying to shape those narratives. Sometimes an interviewee may have shared their story online, had a media training workshop, or may already possess a ‘them and us’ mentality about journalists and the media in general before I even get to speak to them. Some of that mistrust is warranted, and very healthy of course, but there’s also cynicism in a lot of encounters, and many more competing agendas than previously when I sit across from someone and press record.

When using Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook live, video and audio messaging we are all much more aware of how we project ourselves than ever before. As a result, people often display a caginess and deep self-awareness of how they conduct themselves during an interview. One contradiction I’ve come across is that the more people are willing to expose of their lives online, the less personal and intimate they may want to be in one-to-one encounters. Authenticity can become a casualty, chance encounters become less likely and conversations without agendas are at a premium.