That's one of the things I hope that the book can do, is to restore some dignity to Joe Cinque.

It's a terrific privilege to be able to see into somebody else's life.

People demand a lot of the justice system and they demand things that it can't deliver.

But I can't bear it when somebody who some man made a pass at - to call that violence seems to me absurd and insulting to women who've really met violence, who've been raped or bashed.

At the time it seemed like a natural development of my interest in what was going on around me in society.

That's one of the things I hope that the book can do, is to restore some dignity to Joe Cinque.

I suppose there must be idiots who dream of signing deals with publishers while fully intending to drink martinis in cool bars or ride around on skateboards. But the actual writers I know are experts in neurotic self-torture. Every page of writing is the result of a thousand tiny decisions and desperate acts of will.