Friday 16 June 2017

On The Knives for the Guardian's Paperback Writer


Pleased to see how this piece turned out, describing the genesis and gestation of The Knives from the back-of-an-envelope stage when I was calling it 'Homeland.' It's a terrific slot that the Guardian offers to authors to say a little of their process on the occasion of a book going into paperback. And it's a great song, too.

On the title of the piece: I wouldn't do Mrs May's job today for all the Jie in Changxing.

On the extract chosen: I suppose I could claim a little prescience on this one - '‘a Tory government’, yes, but by a gnat’s whisker and no more, propped up by deals cut with Ulstermen' - except that I had governments past fully in mind here. We're encouraged to think that what's happening today is unprecedented, unique, and how things are going to be from now on. But all our lives have been lived before us.

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