Engaging in a discussion with Colin O’Sullivan, the imaginative force behind Apple TV+’s darkly humourous robot-murder series Sunny, our exchange starts rather fittingly, disturbed by intrusive gadgets. A robotic utterance from Zoom’s audio recorder indicating “Recording in progress” sets the stage, followed by an inconvenient interruption from an air conditioner that to O’Sullivan’s ears, resembles a departing jet plane.
Hailing from Kerry, O’Sullivan has chosen Aomori, in the north of Japan, as his home for the last two decades, where he resides with his wife and pair of children. From our shared past as Trinity College Dublin students in the mid-1990s, this conversation marks our inaugural exchange in over 20 years. The catalyst for our reunion is O’Sullivan’s third book, The Dark Manual, from 2018 which has been transformed into the previously mentioned hit TV series featuring Rashida Jones. Such development is profoundly significant.
Throughout his career, O’Sullivan has penned six books, with almost half written after The Dark Manual. A handful have earned recognition through translation and favourable reception in places like France, Russia, and Turkey. His debut novel, Killarney Blues, gained the coveted Prix Mystère de la Critique award for detective fiction in France. Despite this, within his native territory, his name remains relatively unknown.
He opines candidly, “I can hardly fault them. My location has never been closer,” with an air of humour. “I’m not present in literary events, or reading in Dublin or Galway. The blame doesn’t fall on them. My distance is the reason… I’m well-acquainted with novels by Kevin Barry and Sally Rooney… However, I’ve not had the opportunity to meet any of them. I feel like an exile, and I do enjoy being classified as an ‘Irish writer’.” Despite the fact that his first book was set in Killarney and distinctly Irish-he even included Gaelic-football scenes-he acknowledges with a dash of humour that he’s still unknown to his own people.
O’Sullivan embarked on a journey to Japan in 1999 to work as an English educator, intending to stay for a single year. There, he encountered Yuki, who became his spouse and was also employed at the same institute. They started seeing each other and decided to explore further extensions, prompting them to relocate to London for two years. Following this, O’Sullivan continued his passion for teaching English. Their path led them back to Japan, principally Hiroshima prefecture. With the arrival of their children, they shifted north near to Yuki’s kith and kin. The initial plan of living abroad for a year turned into a two-decade long stay.
Since childhood, O’Sullivan was an avid writer. He describes his drive to write as an irresistible urge. As an Irish resident, he was a young admirer of Beckett and took part in a literary group in Killarney. Over the next ten years, he contributed poetry and short stories to numerous journals and magazines in Japan. He did publish a few extended pieces during this span, but refers to them as “blundered books”. According to him, his first successfully published novel was “Killarney Blues” in 2013.
His first publication was one among the six titles released by Dublin’s Betimes Books, a company established by Svetlana Pironko, previously an agent. The company thrives on an independent and non-profit base. O’Sullivan identifies himself as a “weekend writer” as he is dedicated to his English teaching job from Monday to Friday. Despite this, he is quite prolific, with four completed books in hand to his name and more in process.
O’Sullivan attributes his massive volume of writings to his isolation and boredom, as there are not many foreigners present where he lives. His solitude amplified his writing. He light-heartedly remarks that if he were living in Ireland, he would probably get less writing done due to all the distractions of soccer games, hurling matches, and pub outings. However, due to his detached surroundings, he committed to writing, leading to productive ten-year span of literary outpouring.
In the fiction series Sunny/The Dark Manual, the protagonist, Susie, portrays an outsider with language barriers existing in Japan. While the television show features her as an American, the book presents her as an Irish character. There are certain autobiographical elements drawn from O’Sullivan’s life reflected in Susie, including the struggle with the Japanese language that proves arduous to master. Although he speaks basic Japanese sufficient for survival and navigation, O’Sullivan admits his inability to read and write effectively. Furthermore, he draws on his Irish heritage to incorporate an element of habitual drinking into Susie’s character.
O’Sullivan often uses an initial image to inspire his novels. His recent adult-oriented book, Marshmallows, originated from the picture of an affluent actor anxiously awaiting his son and his son’s partner for an uneasy Christmas feast. In contrast, The Dark Manual was sparked by a nightmare that had him scheming to outrun a self-programmed robot bent on annihilating him, while desperately searching for the instructions.
Upon sharing the strange dream with his wife over breakfast, she proposed the concept would make an intriguing science-fiction film. Consequently, he adapted it into a screenplay, preceding its transformation by Katie Robbins for Apple. His wife, Yuki, also inspired him to compile the fairy-tales he narrated to their child about lesser-known characters into a children’s book titled The True Story of Binderella and other Secret Siblings. Notably, all O’Sullivan’s published novels take the initial form of a script, which he equates to ‘scaffolding or a skeleton’, only later to be fleshed out into a novel adorned with creative wording and sentenced.
With a deep-rooted affection for both literature and film, O’Sullivan gleans his inspiration from a myriad of sources – be it a movie by Jim Jarmusch, a novel by John Banville, or a simple pub conversation about someone’s divorce. He emphasises that stories are his primary interest and the need for engaging elements in these stories led him to screenwriting, where he could ply his ‘elegant writing’.
While O’Sullivan’s origins are heavily literary, he isn’t shy about dabbling in genre fiction. ‘Killarney Blues’ delves into the noir genre, ‘The Dark Manual’ bespeaks sci-fi, ‘The Starved Lover Sings’ explores dystopian fiction, and ‘Marshmallows’ is a thrilling tale of revenge. He enjoys deconstructing genres and their inherent expectations, highlighting how Kevin Barry’s ‘The Heart in Winter’ is a uniquely reimagined western.
O’Sullivan’s genre ventures are also marked by skillful literary embellishments. ‘The Dark Manual’, for instance, features dream-like writings about owls, termed as ‘a type of poetry’ by him. He suggests that this might be a reflection of their Irish heritage, aiming to create beauty in their expression. He admires John Banville, an Irish living author, for his inspiring paragraphs.
However, he warns that the adaptation doesn’t feature any owls, much to the disappointment of some readers. “There won’t be any owls,” he apologetically confirms to his ‘Sunny’ audience, despite its recurring theme in his book.
Apple got interested in ‘The Dark Manual’ after a film and television agent was introduced to O’Sullivan’s work by his publisher from the Betimes collection. The agent subsequently introduced the book to Robbins, a former writer for shows like ‘Six Feet Under’ and ‘The Affair’. Despite some obstacles such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Hollywood writers’ strike, Apple decided to make it into a major TV+ series. O’Sullivan was only on set once, on a cold night in Tokyo under the direction of Dearbhla Walsh, where he was thrilled to hear an Irish voice on set.
He was not overly involved in the production, as he joked, “You’ve got to let your darlings go.” The series, at least in the initial episodes, stick to the key plot points from the book, although it has a different tone. O’Sullivan anticipated a dark and serious adaptation, akin to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ but he was taken aback when he learned they were turning it into a dark comedy. He has read only the first four episodes of the ten-episode series and he is looking forward to seeing how the rest of it unfolds.
The TV series has led to a refreshed interest in ‘The Dark Manual’, now retitled ‘Sunny’ and republished by Mariner Books, a division of HarperCollins. This move was made to align the book with the show and capture the opportunity that the series presented.
The success of the TV series has brought enjoyment to O’Sullivan, piquing the interest of his teenage kids who pay little attention to his books. The show has also brought his other works to light, which may have been overlooked before. That said, O’Sullivan plans to continue his life as before, teaching from Monday to Friday while maintaining his writing.
The television programme, Sunny, is accessible on Apple TV+. Mariner Books is the publisher of the corresponding novel.