I'm Waiting For The Day When My

I'm A Novelist, Not A Social Scientist Or A Commentator.

The 'good' Mother, With Her Fixed Smile, Her Rigidity, Her Goody-goody Outlook, Her Obsession With Unnecessary Hygiene, Is In Fact A Fool. It Is The 'bad' Mother, Unafraid Of A Joke And A Glass Of Wine, Richly Self-expressive, Scornful Of Suburban Values, Who Is, In Reality, Good.

To Become A Mother Is To Learn A Whole Language - To Relearn It, Perhaps, As It Was The Tongue To Which We Were Born - And Hence Gain Entrance To A Forgotten World Of Comprehension.

We Who Were Born Were Not Witnesses To Our Birth: Like Death, It Is Something We Are Forever After Trying To Catch Sight Of.

As Writers Go, I Have A Skin Of Average Thickness. I Am Pleased By A Good Review, Disappointed By A Bad. None Of It Penetrates Far Enough To Influence The Thing I Write Next.