Colm Tóibín says that minor impressions sometimes stay in notebooks for decades until he understands what he’s seen. Often, the story gets energy from the memories of a place where he stayed, a room he lived in. That place becomes part of the story.
Tóibín, who teaches at Columbia University, said it would take a while for him to be able to write about the room he was living and working in when Trump was elected to a second term. When he does write, the room will be framed in a way — part of a completed story.
This is the room where I learned first‑hand not only what evil is like but how evil is tolerated. What is strange about being in America in the time of Trump is how ordinary it is, how what was unimaginable just over a year ago is suddenly, shockingly no longer a surprise.
I like that idea. You could say, as people do, that a place is just where a story is set. But I think that place is where a story is understood.
• Source: Colm Tóibín, “‘I’ve learned first-hand how evil is tolerated’: Colm Tóibín on living in the US under Trump”; The Guardian, March 21, 2026. It’s here:
Tóibín wrote this when his new collection of short stories, The News from Dublin, was published. I’m late to the party.
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