GRAHAM NORTON IS busy in the States promoting his novel, Holding, after a lovely long holiday in Ireland.

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The proud Corkman appeared on Good Morning America where he talked about his Irish roots being the inspiration for the novel.

The cover even got a brief flash across Times Square

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Far from Cork he is now.

Graham said he was inspired by stories he heard during his childhood in Ireland, revealing that it’s often hard to believe so much scandal can come from such tiny villages.

Ireland’s one of those places where there’s just so many stories. If you just drew an Irish village as it actually is people would go, ‘but this is ridiculous. This is unbelievable that every house has a scandal, or an affair’.

Too accurate.

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Some of the stories were based on things he heard around his village as a youngster

I just picked a few stories from my childhood that I knew from various places we grew up and wove them into this story.

But he wasn’t fond of living in such a tiny area until he grew to appreciate it

I grew up in rural Ireland. Growing up I hated it, the minute I could get out of there I was out. Now, that’s the thing, you get older, and I now love Ireland. I just spent my whole summer there, I love spending physical time there. But writing this book, it was then such a pleasure to spend time in my mind there.

Graham also said he decided to write his first fictional novel once he hit the age of fifty, and his ideal guest would be Julia Roberts.

C’mon Julia, get on it.

Check out the full interview here.

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