‘Knowledge of life in these cities — that I could never have acquired without inhabiting them — surfaced in my fiction. Each gave me subjects for my work. Sometimes though, I have to leave a city in order to write about it.’
'On the hour-long car ride to the hotel, I kept seeing banners bearing my face. The first time I caught sight of one, I wondered if lack of sleep on the overnight flight was making me hallucinate. But, no, there I was again.'
'We came home and settled in Cambridgeshire, or what I still think of as 'Huntingdonshire'. In fact, this largely imaginary shire has become the perfect place for me to write in.'