Finally, and only about three months behind schedule, I’ve got round to uploading the fourth of six planned books to Kindle. Pretend We’re Dead is a sweet-natured, funny and nostalgic dip into one summer in the lives of a motley crew of slackers in mid-1990s Ireland.
I started this story aaaaaaaaaaaages ago – literally, it was far closer to the millennium than the present day – or, to be precise, the autumn of 2003. And, funnily enough, it began life as a film script. A handful of people really liked this original version of Pretend We’re Dead, and John Crowley – of Brooklyn and True Detective fame – was nice enough to chat for an hour on the phone about it, after I took a flyer and posted it to his agent. (This really happened!) He had a lot of kind words about the quality of my script, but ultimately wasn’t interested in producing it as a movie…and unfortunately, neither was anyone else.
So, around 2012 – this is all so long in the fast-receding past now, I genuinely don’t remember exactly when – I decided to retool Pretend We’re Dead as a novel. Expanded some scenes, reduced others, added new ones, filled in the background and coloured in the scenery around the original dialogue and basic screenplay instructions. It’s essentially the same story, but obviously quite different in tone and rhythm. Hopefully still has a fairly visual sense at the same time.
Anyway, read all about Pretend We’re Dead here and buy a copy here. You won’t regret it, like.
Darragh McManus, author and journalist 
Leave a Reply