I Loved Gore Vidal's Burr. That Book

Cravats Grow Higher, As If They Mean To Protect The Throat. The Highest Cravats In Public Life Will Be Worn By Citizen Antoine Saint-just, Of The National Convention And The Committee Of Public Safety. In The Dark And Harrowing Days Of '94, An Obscene Feminine Inversion Will Appear: A Thin Crimson Ribbon, Worn Round A Bare White Neck.

When I Came To Write My Thomas Cromwell Books, I Moved Onto The Center Ground Of English History, But I Was Never There Before. I Didn't Feel It Was My History Particularly, Coming From Northern Britain, Being Of Irish Extraction, Being A Cradle Catholic. The Image Of England I Grew Up With Felt Somewhere Else. There Was An Official England In Postcards, But It Wasn't One I Had Visited. But I Decided To March Onto The Center Ground And Occupy It Whether It Was Mine Or Not.

I Used To Think That When I Set Out That Doing The Research Was Enough! But Then The Gaps Would Emerge That Could Only Be Filled By The Imagination. And Imagination Only Comes When You Privilege The Subconscious, When You Make Delay And Procrastination Work For You.

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

People Who Wrote Literary Novels About The Past Probably Didn't Want Them Pegged As Historical Fiction. Certainly That Was True In England.