For many weeks after [my wife] died, I could not get used to the feeling of coldness and lifelessness on her side of the bed - and it was even worse when they took the body away and buried her.

I had no sense of any reputation that What a Carve Up! might acquire - at the time I didnt even have a publisher, so my main worry was whether it was even going to see the light of day or not.

Well, I like the rain before it falls.

As I said, I had no publisher for What a Carve Up! while I was writing it, so all we had to live off was my wife's money and little bits I was picking up for journalism.

Some people don't realize that a straight 'No' can be the kindest answer in the world.

My only regret is that I signed away the world rights and in America they've been far and away my most successful books, but I never saw a cent from any of it.

I like the idea of a big caesura between the narratives, a space which readers can fill in with their own speculative history.