Frank Parker
About Frank Parker
Frank Parker’s writing has been likened to that of Laurie Lee, Ian McEwan and Charles Dickens. Not bad for a septuagenarian who came to writing late in life.
His most recent work, due to be published in Summer 2020, is a historical novel based on a real life, that of Arthur Kennedy. Appointed Poor Law Inspector in Kilrush, County Clare, towards the end of 1847, Kennedy exposed the practice of mass evictions carried out by wealthy landlords.
Frank is a retired Engineer. He spent most of his working life in England where he was employed by UK based multi-national companies. He always wanted to write but has only found the freedom to do so since retiring to Ireland in October 2006. He lives with Freda, his wife since 1963, in Co. Laois, Ireland.
His first novel, Honest Hearts, was written after reading about a Laois born man who became a gold miner in the Klondike and Alaska. Frank researched various aspects of life in North America at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to provide authentic settings and experiences for his principal characters.
His second novel, Summer Day, is set in 1947 in a small rural community, similar to that in which he grew up. It follows a small boy and his dog as they try to evade family members and others seeking him following a tragic accident.
Strongbow’s Wife follows the events of the Norman occupation of Ireland in the latter part of the 12th century as seen through the eyes of the young woman given in marriage in return for Strongbow’s leadership of the invasion.
Transgression deals with the changes in attitudes to sex and sexuality in Great Britain over the past 70 years and features a member of the British Parliament terrified his secret liaison with a young woman 40 years ago will be revealed.
In non-fiction, A Purgatory of Misery is an attempt to explain the historical, cultural and social context for the Irish famine of the mid-nineteenth century.
You can read more about Frank here
and why he writes on Irish history.