Divorce also entails the beginning of a supposition that that familial reality might have obstructed one's ability to perceive others.

Every time I write a book, I've probably taken five years off my life.

For me, a novel is always the result of my attempt to impose myself on raw circumstances. It is a concrete form of lived experience.

I was aware, in those early days of motherhood, that my behaviour was strange to the people who knew me well. It was as though I had been brainwashed, taken over by a cult religion. And yet this cult, motherhood, was not a place where I could actually live. Like any cult, it demanded a complete surrender of identity to belong to it.

You could time a suburban story by your watch: it lasts as long as it takes a small furry animal that's lonely to find friends, or a small furry animal that's lost to find its parents; it lasts as long as a quick avowal of love; it lasts precisely as long as the average parent is disposed on a Tuesday night to spend reading aloud to children.

I don't go to church any more, but I think that Catholicism is rather like the brand they use on cattle: I feel so formed in that Catholic mould that I don't think I could adopt any other form of spirituality. I still get feelings of consolation about churches.

Divorce also entails the beginning of a supposition that that familial reality might have obstructed one's ability to perceive others.