Because I work quite slowly, I have to keep myself interested over a long research and writing period. So I can't see myself writing about modern middle-class Londoners anytime soon.

Endings are never neat, because when life goes on, there is no end. You may want to speculate about what the characters get up to afterwards, but I feel it would be presumptuous of me to dictate that.

I suppose the short chapters and differing narrative points of view are quite "cinematic" devices, which came very naturally to me.

Initially I only decided to try and write a novel because I wasn't getting enough screenwriting work. It wasn't a long-held ambition, and certainly the idea came first.

Gypsies are, to say the least, underrepresented in literature and film.

If writers stuck to firsthand experience, novels would be pretty limited.

I don't think I could write about someone I didn't feel some sympathy for.