Rencontre with author Mark O'Connell

In 1982, in an Ireland rocked by bombings, unemployment and hunger strikes, Malcolm Macarthur found himself in financial dire straits. This intellectual dandy panicked at the thought of having to work for a living. So he hatched an unlikely plan: to rob a bank. To obtain a car and a weapon, he brutally murdered a nurse and a young farmer... The author and journalist Mark O'Connell was haunted for a long time by this story of double murder. After serving his thirty-year prison sentence, Macarthur was released, and returned to Dublin. Mark decides to meet him, in order to unravel the mysteries that still surround these brutal and inexplicable crimes. Thus, the author finds himself confronted with his own narrative : what does writing about a murderer means ?

Published in September by Stock, Sur le fil de la violence ‘joins the list of great literary works that have attempted to capture the human propensity for evil’ (The Guardian)

‘In the gallery of criminals who have fascinated writers, the elegant Malcolm Macarthur is one of the most enigmatic. And in the pantheon of writers fascinated by criminals, Mark O'Connell proves to be one of the most brilliant.’ (Emmanuel Carrère)

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