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.

It is simply much easier to infuse life, feeling, and higher truth into a novel than a non-fiction work, to find the license to write truth without being wedded to fact.

I was very disciplined when home - lights out for the girls at 9:00, two hours of writing for me. It was murder on my marriage.

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.

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.

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.

I have prided myself with striving for objectivity, something many literary-minded critics dismiss as impossible. But in Washington, reporters are practically the only people who actually spend time talking to Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, and I find the longer I report in Washington, the mushier and less conclusive my own views are. I like it that way.