When I start writing for the day, I usually read aloud the chapter I'm working on. It gets me into it and illuminates mistakes. I'm very rhythm conscious and I do enjoy repetition.

I'm slightly pessimistic about human nature, about how close it's possible to bond with those around you. Dying alone is a deep fear for most people. I'm not scared of death but I'm scared of dying scared. Maybe everything else in life comes from those two points: the separation anxiety of childhood and the ultimate fear of dying alone.

What I imagined doesn't require anti-gravity beams or anything too spectacular, just advances in analysing different genes, finding out what they can do and recombining them.

I come from a privileged background but I worked a lot of winter seasons in the Alps and I've done lots of mundane summer jobs back in Britain where I mixed with less well off people. Maybe it comes from there but I've always felt that it's our duty to make society fairer.

We have this sense that there's something bigger than us, above and beyond. If you take away the idea of God, you need to replace it with a shared moral code. Otherwise, everybody becomes very self-centred and materialistic.

At the moment we seem to be heading in the opposite direction. However you dress it up, it's pretty obvious who is being affected by the government's cuts.

I wanted to write a book that imagined where advances in the study of genetics might lead us. Holman was the first character who came to me: I envisaged the misshapen offspring of beautiful, wealthy parents. Then I realised that he bore a striking resemblance to Toulouse-Lautrec. I developed that, made Holman an alcoholic who lives among hookers, an artist tortured by his disability.