I'm basically an Upper West Side Jewish writer.

The best Paris I know now is in my head.

I'm basically an Upper West Side Jewish writer.

Whether you like it or not, Paris is the beating heart of Western civilisation. It's where it all began and ended.

And, with much of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany, and Mussolini's armies in Albania, on the Greek frontier, one wasn't sure what came next. So, don't trust the telephone. Or the newspapers. Or the radio. Or tomorrow.

I expect that my readers have been to Europe, I expect them to have some feeling for a foreign language, I expect them to have read books - there are a lot of people like that! That's my audience.

You write a lot of books; you hope you get better.