For What's The Point Of Breeding Children,

Like Every Writer, I'm Drawn By Unlikely Juxtapositions, Precisely-dated And Once-only Collisions Between People From Different Worlds.

I'm A Very Organised And Rational And Linear Thinker And You Have To Stop All That To Write A Novel.

Insights Don't Usually Arrive At My Desk, But Go Into Notebooks When I'm On The Move. Or Half-asleep.

My First Book Was A Historical Novel. I Started Writing In 1974. In Those Days, Historical Novels Meant Ladies With Swelling Bosoms On The Cover. Basically, It Meant Historical Romance. It Was Not Respectable As A Genre.

What Is It We Are Hating? It Goes Beyond Politics. I Suppose That My Fascination With [margaret Thatcher] Is Not Just With Her Political Record But With Her As A Phenomenon.