My Children Are Living, Thinking Human Beings.

For Me, A Novel Is Always The Result Of My Attempt To Impose Myself On Raw Circumstances. It Is A Concrete Form Of Lived Experience.

As It Stands, Motherhood Is A Sort Of Wilderness Through Which Each Woman Hacks Her Way, Part Martyr, Part Pioneer; A Turn Of Events From Which Some Women Derive Feelings Of Heroism, While Others Experience A Sense Of Exile From The World They Knew.

Reality Might Be Described As The Eternal Equipoise Of Positive And Negative.

It's A Pretty Brutal Process, Having A Baby.

I Was Aware, In Those Early Days Of Motherhood, That My Behaviour Was Strange To The People Who Knew Me Well. It Was As Though I Had Been Brainwashed, Taken Over By A Cult Religion. And Yet This Cult, Motherhood, Was Not A Place Where I Could Actually Live. Like Any Cult, It Demanded A Complete Surrender Of Identity To Belong To It.