Whenever I pick up a book I think, "Tell me something I don't know."

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 use real people for inspiration.

Clearly the secret of happiness...is a variation on the general principle of banging your head against a wall, and then stopping.

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.

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