I was very conscious of race as I was writing. I was lucky to have spent real time in Portuguese Africa, but I am white and my main characters are white, outsiders at sea in the "Dark Continent."

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, but usually fiction is just better.

Thatcher had broken the miners' union, all but crushed the Labour Party, dramatically cut back the welfare state, even flirted with a poll tax. In the circles I ran in, Reagan was mocked as a childish dolt. Thatcher was despised.

Liberals in the US don't have great passions about Margaret Thatcher. Conservatives do. For all the worship that Ronald Reagan elicits in conservative circles in the US, I would venture that Thatcher did far more to reshape British society than Reagan did here. When I moved to Britain, the utilities were state-run. By the time I left, most of that was privatized. Thatcher had broken the miners' union, all but crushed the Labour Party, cut back the welfare state, even flirted with a poll tax. In the circles I ran in, Reagan was mocked as a childish dolt. Thatcher was despised.

I was very conscious of race as I was writing. I was lucky to have spent real time in Portuguese Africa, but I am white and my main characters are white, outsiders at sea in the "Dark Continent."

I am not trying to be young again. But I do feel the need to capture that energy in story form before it slips from my mind, to recount those adventures if not relive them.

Novelists may be able to seek advice from readers and editors, but in the end, it is up to them to get the book right.