The consideration of change over the century is about loss, though I think that social change is gain rather than loss.

In old age, you realise that while you're divided from your youth by decades, you can close your eyes and summon it at will. As a writer it puts one at a distinct advantage.

I rather like getting away from fiction.

The Photograph is concerned with the power that the past has to interfere with the present: the time bomb in the cupboard.

Every novel generates its own climate, when you get going.

I believe that the experience of childhood is irretrievable. All that remains, for any of us, is a headful of brilliant frozen moments, already dangerously distorted by the wisdoms of maturity.

I have had to empty two family homes during the last few years - first, the house that had been my grandmothers since 1923, and then my own country home, which we had lived in for over twenty years.