You Don't Get On By

My First Book Was A Historical Novel. I Started Writing In 1974. In Those Days, Historical Novels Meant Ladies With Swelling Bosoms On The Cover. Basically, It Meant Historical Romance. It Was Not Respectable As A Genre.

Like Every Writer, I'm Drawn By Unlikely Juxtapositions, Precisely-dated And Once-only Collisions Between People From Different Worlds.

In Terms Of Essays, I Would Say Oliver Sacks. His Breadth Of Hard Knowledge And Imagination And Empathy Seems To Constitute The Perfect Mind To Me.

History Is Always Changing Behind Us, And The Past Changes A Little Every Time We Retell It.

The More Facts I Can Have, The Better. I Can Operate Very Nicely Between Them, But I Am Not Very Good At Making Things Up. I Am Not Sure How Ethical It Is.