History Boy

Peter A. Quinn worked ten years on his first novel, Banished Children of Eve, writing in the early hours of the morning while working a day job as a speechwriter for New York Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo. As he writes in the March 14 issue, he can relate to St. Peter because he too had two jobs: fisherman and apostle. Like St. Peter too, Quinn knows what it's like to try to walk on water: "Each time I start a novel, I have the same sensation of going over the side of the boat." In this conversation, Quinn talks about Governor Cuomo's famous speech on abortion at the University of Notre Dame in 1984, his new historical novel, The Man Who Never Returned and the recent production of Banished Children at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York.