A Divvil of a Lad

A divvil of a lad

A Divvil of a Lad was the working title of Brian Jacques’ autobiography. All information known about the project has been collected here.

Unfortunately, the A Divvil of a Lad project was shelved.  It’s unknown whether or not it will ever be published, especially after Brian’s passing, but we remain hopeful. Keep checking The Redwall Newsline for further developments.

Printed in a May 14th, 2002 article for Publisher’s Weekly by Heather Vogel Frederick:

Jacques is putting the finishing touches on an autobiography he’s writing for Philomel. The working title is A Divvil of a Lad–”that’s what my grandmother used to call me,” Jacques says.

“The first part tells about when I was a little kid in wartime, growing up in a Catholic working-class parish along the docks in Liverpool,” he says. “I was laughing the other week while writing about Sister Mary Veronica. She was from Connemara, and carried a cane as big as herself. Here we were, five-year-old kids at St. John’s School for the Totally Bewildered, and when she’d cane you she used to say”–here he softens his voice into a lilting brogue–”‘You can thank your lucky stars I’m in a lenient mood, but woe betide you if you ever cross my path again!’ Now I’d heard of low tide and high tide and flood tide, but I’d never heard of a woebetide. I figured it was a tide governed by Sister Mary Veronica’s lucky stars.”