An Artist's Concern Is To Capture Beauty

The Booker Triumph Of Graham Swift's Moving, Effortlessly Profound Last Orders Is A Vindication Of The Quiet, Much-misunderstood Path This Fine Writer Chose To Take After The Brilliance Of Waterland More Than Ten Years Ago.

Because Maybe, In A Way, We Didn't Leave It Behind Nearly As Much As We Might Once Have Thought. Because Somewhere Underneath, A Part Of Us Stayed Like That: Fearful Of The World Around Us, And No Matter How Much We Despised Ourselves For It--unable Quite To Let Each Other Go.

Maybe All Of Us At Hailsam Had Little Secrets Like That -- Little Private Nooks Created Out Of Thin Air Where We Could Go Off Alone Without Fears And Longing.

There's Still A Part Of Me That Thinks I Have To Write A Really Good Novel. I'm Not Trying To Say I'm Not Happy With The Novels I've Written In The Past. But It Always Feels To Me Like There's Another One That I Have To Write That Will Really Say What I Want To Say, And Really Paint This World That I Can See Hazily In My Head.

I've Always Had A Great Fondness For English Detective Fiction Such As Agatha Christie And Dorothy Sayers.