New Books Network 159 Glenn Patterson: You Can Choose Who You Are (JP, DC)
Oct 30, 2025
Glenn Patterson, a celebrated Northern Irish novelist and director of the Seamus Heaney Centre, joins sociologist David Cunningham to dissect the complexities of identity in post-conflict Belfast. They discuss the evolution of the term 'community' and its divisive implications, alongside the dangerous nostalgia surrounding sectarian violence. Patterson likens the notion of 'unseeing' in divided cities to the haunting narrative in China Miéville’s novel, emphasizing how urban landscapes contribute to social segregation. They also reflect on policing, visual markers of conformity, and the resurgence of violence fueled by political tensions.
01:05:10
Choose Your Own Identity
- Growing up in Belfast taught people to choose and define complex identities rather than accept binary labels.
- Glenn Patterson argues identity can be self-defined and not reduced to the single word that can mark you out.
Take Back Language Intentionally
- Reclaim abused words by examining their origins, connotations, and uses before using them again.
- Patterson urges writers to take back language to resist reductive political labeling.
Murdered Taxi Driver And Backlash
- A Catholic taxi driver was murdered for his religion and his partner publicly denounced the killers on TV the next day.
- Her family were then expelled from their loyalist area for speaking out, illustrating personal cost of dissent.
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Intro
00:00 • 2min
Why Glenn Wrote Lapsed Protestant
01:43 • 11min
The Problematic Power of 'Community'
12:34 • 4min
Mixed Relationships as Targets and Symbols
16:45 • 4min
Murals, Monuments, and Internal Policing
20:43 • 7min
Peace Lines, Architecture, and Invisible Segregation
27:35 • 5min
The City & The City as a Metaphor for 'Unseeing'
32:11 • 8min
Why Some Areas Become 'Narnia' in People's Minds
40:11 • 1min
Explaining Recent Anti-Immigrant Riots
41:32 • 4min
Policing, Militarization, and Historical Violence
45:21 • 4min
Graffiti vs. Paramilitary Murals
49:11 • 6min
Books That Shaped Glenn's Imagination
54:47 • 3min
Recent Reads on Belfast's Long Tail of Conflict
57:53 • 3min
Kevin Lynch and the Image of the City for Spatial Insight
01:01:19 • 1min
Outro
01:02:24 • 46sec
#12685
• Mentioned in 3 episodes
The City and the City
China Miéville
China Miéville's "The City & The City" presents a unique dystopian world where two cities, Besźel and Ul Qoma, occupy the same physical space yet remain largely invisible to each other's inhabitants.
The narrative follows a murder investigation that forces the protagonist to navigate the complex rules and social structures governing the interaction, or rather, the non-interaction, between the two cities.
The novel explores themes of surveillance, identity, and the nature of reality itself, challenging readers to question their perceptions of the world around them.
Miéville's intricate world-building and thought-provoking themes make it a compelling read for fans of science fiction and urban fantasy.
The novel's unique premise and exploration of societal structures make it a standout in the genre.
#5532
• Mentioned in 7 episodes
Shame
Free Yourself, Find Joy, and Build True Self-Esteem
Joseph Burgo
#2642
• Mentioned in 14 episodes
Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie
The novel tells the story of Saleem Sinai, who is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the moment of India's independence from British rule.
Saleem's life is intricately linked with the history of India, and he possesses telepathic powers that allow him to communicate with other 'midnight children' born between 12 a.
m. and 1 a. m. on that date.
Each of these children has unique magical powers, and Saleem acts as a conduit to connect them.
The story spans various historical events in India, including the partition, wars, and the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi.
It explores themes of identity, history, and the fragmented nature of a newly independent nation.
#13697
• Mentioned in 3 episodes
Milkman
Anna Burns
The novel tells the story of 'middle sister', an 18-year-old girl living in a Catholic and separatist stronghold during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
She is pursued by 'Milkman', a local paramilitary, which leads to rumors and social ostracism.
The story explores themes of gossip, social pressure, and the dangers of being 'interesting' in a tight-knit community.
It delves into the complexities of Northern Irish sociopolitics and the universal experience of societies in crisis.
The narrative is marked by its distinctive voice, humor, and the daily violence of the protagonist's world.
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There's Something Happening Here
David Cunningham
There’s Something Happening Here examines the complex interplay between the New Left, the Ku Klux Klan, and FBI counterintelligence during a turbulent period in American history.
The book explores the strategies and tactics employed by these groups, highlighting their ideological differences and unexpected points of convergence.
It analyzes the role of the FBI in monitoring and influencing these movements, revealing the agency's often controversial methods and their impact on the political landscape.
The book also examines the broader social and political context in which these events unfolded, providing insights into the changing dynamics of race, class, and power in the United States.
Through meticulous research and insightful analysis, the book sheds light on a critical chapter in American history, offering a nuanced understanding of the forces that shaped the nation's political and social landscape.
The book's conclusions offer a valuable contribution to our understanding of the complexities of social movements and the role of government surveillance.
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Here's me here
Glenn Patterson
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The Northern Bank Job
Glenn Patterson
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The Bureau
Eoin McNamee
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U.S.A. (trilogy)
The 42nd Parallel (1930)
Nineteen Nineteen (1932)
The Big Money (1936)
John Dos Passos
The 'U. S. A.
' trilogy is a series of three novels by John Dos Passos that provides a panoramic view of American life in the first three decades of the 20th century.
The trilogy consists of 'The 42nd Parallel' (1930), '1919' (1932), and 'The Big Money' (1936).
Dos Passos employs experimental narrative techniques, including newsreel snippets, stream-of-consciousness passages, and biographical sketches of famous figures.
The novels explore themes of capitalism, social inequality, and the disillusionment of the American Dream.
'U. S. A.
' is considered a landmark work of modernist literature and a powerful social commentary on the complexities of American society.
It captures the energy and contradictions of a nation undergoing rapid change.
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Lapsed Protestant
Glenn Patterson
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The Image of the City
Kevin Lynch
'The Image of the City' is a seminal work in urban planning and design by Kevin Lynch, published in 1960.
The book explores how individuals perceive and navigate the urban environment, focusing on the mental maps people create of their cities.
Lynch identifies five key elements that contribute to a city's imageability: paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks.
He argues that a clear and well-structured city image is essential for the well-being and orientation of its inhabitants.
The book has had a lasting impact on urban planning, influencing the design of cities around the world.
It provides valuable insights into the psychological and social aspects of urban spaces.
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Klansville, U.S.A.
The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan
David Cunningham
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In Belfast, good fences can make for bad neighbors. David Cunningham ( Wash U. sociologist, author of There’s Something Happening Here and Klansville, U.S.A and frequent RTB visitor) joins John to speak about the Troubles and their aftermath with the brilliant Northern Irish novelist/essayist/memoirist Glenn Patterson. His fiction includes The International (1999) and Where Are We Now? but the conversation’s main focus is his two collections of short non-fiction, Lapsed Protestant (2006) and Here’s Me Here (2016).
Glenn has lifetime of insights about the boundary markers and easy to miss shibboleths that define life in divided places--and in divided times. In Belfast, everyone learns to use words without being marked out: how do you avoid uttering "the one word that gets you killed"?
But Troubles that go cold also have a way of heating up again, if we forget, as Glenn puts it, that you can choose who you are. China Mieville's brilliant novel The City and the City is, says Glenn, an allegory for places like Belfast itself, where you have to learn to “unsee” residents of "the other city" even in shared areas. That kind of unseeing, in fiction and in real life, leads to distorted mental maps.
Glenn sees the so-called “softening” of the peace walls as among the most pernicious occurrences of the last 40 years, since softening coupled with notion that you simply belong to one of two "communities" is what makes real traffic, real conversation, harder to achieve. He and David agree that all over the world, in ways the echo Belfast although it is rarely spelled out, all sorts of invisible architectural extensions of the security and segregation apparatus hover unobtrusively. Glenn also riffs on the names people dream up for what might lie beyond a Belfast wall's other side, spinning off writer Colin Carberry's proposal: Narnia.
Mentioned in the Episode
- “Love poetry: the RUC and Me” was Glenn's first nonfiction piece back inthe late 1980s.
- Robert McLiam Wilson: Glenn's friend and fellow Troubles novelist, whose work includes Ripley Bogle (1989).
- Eoin Macnamie's work includes Resurrection Man (1994).
- “The C-word” (2014) Glenn's wonderful essay on the trouble that starts when the word "community" gets subdivided into "communities."
- Padraic Fiacc, sometimes called ”the Poet oft he Troubles” finally has a blue historical marker. That makes Glenn ask why are there are so many "blue plaques" for combatants, so few for non-combatants?
- The interface zones and the strategic cul de sacs that continue to divide Belfast neighborhoods have been brilliantly detailed and studied by various historians; eg this tour by Neil Jarman,
- Glenn compares Civil Rights in Northern Ireland in the 1960s with the US Civil Rights movement and with Paris 1968; the 70’s bombing campaigns lines up with the actions of the Red Army Faction in Germany.
Recallable Books
- Glennn says his inspiration to write on partition comes from reading Salman Rushdie’s Shame and Midnight’s Children. He also praises John Dos Passos USA trilogy.
- David interested in the long tail of a conflict and aingles out Glenn Patterson’s own novel, The Northern Bank Job as well as Eoin McNamee The Bureau.
- Inspired by Glenn's account of how resident learn to see and unsee portions of Belfast, John praises Kevin Lynch's 1960 The Image of the City.
Read the episode here.
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