You want a novel to tap as directly as possible into your most unspeakable preoccupations. And in America, in particular, cricket is pretty unspeakable.

It used to be the case that for an Irishman to come to the U.S. involved a perilous journey on a ship. It involved singing lots of songs before you left saying goodbye, and once you were in the U.S., it involved singing lots of songs about how you were never going to set foot in Ireland again.

It won't be long before we'll be deafened by the screeches of whistles being blown by whistle-blowers blowing the whistle on themselves.

One of the great pluses of being an immigrant is you get to start again in terms of your identity. You get to shed the narratives which cling to you.

You want a novel to tap as directly as possible into your most unspeakable preoccupations. And in America, in particular, cricket is pretty unspeakable.

I'm completely cricketed out. If I never have to write another word about cricket again, I'll be a happy man.

Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.