STROP IDOL
By Chris Kelso
In 1888, Vincent Van Gough, having long admired the work of Paul
Gaugin, invited him to his yellow house in the South of France for an autumn of
painting and discussion. The meeting ended with Gaugin hastily absconding back to
Arles and Van Gough lopping off his own ear. They say you should never meet
your idols - investigative journalist and academic Eamonn O’Neil found this out
the hard way.
In 1998 O’Neil tracked down fabled NYPD officer
Frank Serpico in his remote cabin in upstate New York. Since famously
testifying against systemic police corruption, Serpico was the subject of
Sidney Lumet’s 1973 opus starring Al Pacino as the titular character. O’Neil
travelled thousands of miles to write about him only to find that the man who’d
become synonymous with honesty and integrity had become a victim of his own
hype.
“I remember he really tested my patience, pushed me to the edge. I remember he kept imitating my Scots accent, which is funny for the first 300 seconds maybe. He was also incredibly vain. By the end of it I just wanted to put him flat out on the floor, he wound me up so much.”
The Strathclyde graduate has managed to use this
awkward experience in his latest novel “The Last Court of Appeal”.
“I’m not sure if it was me, if I was too young and we just didn’t come together well, but the whole thing has shaped me into who I am now. With Tim Flannegan I tried to use different parts of people I know, he’s not just based on me. But all these experiences are learning curves, meeting Frank Serpico was definitely a significant one.”
