You Wouldn't Think You Could

I've Always Written. At The Age Of Six Or Seven, I Would Get Sheets Of A4 Paper And Fold Them In Half, Cut The Edges To Make A Little Eight-page Booklet, Break It Up Into Squares And Put In Little Stick Men With Little Speech Bubbles, And I'd Have A Spy Story, A Space Story And A Football Story.

I Took The First James Kelman Novel, 'the Bus Conductor Hines', Home To My Dad. I Thought, 'my Dad Will Like This; It's Written In Scots.' But My Dad Said: 'i Can't Read That.' He Was Reading James Bond And John Le Carre. That Was Part Of What Attracted Me To Crime - The Idea Of Getting A Wide Audience.

Was It All Inevitable, John?" Reeve Was Pushing His Fingers Across The Floor Of The Cell, Seated On His Haunches. I Was Lying On The Mattress. Yes," I Said. "i Think It Was. Certainly, It's Written That Way. The End Of The Book Is There Before The Beginning's Hardly Started.

I Used To Think That: Whenever I Heard That Someone Had Taken 10 Years To Write A Novel, I'd Think It Must Be A Big, Serious Book. Now I Think, 'no - It Took You One Year To Write, And Nine Years To Sit Around Eating Kit Kats.

His Eyes Beheld Beauty Not In Reality But In The Printed Word. Standing In The Waiting-room, He Realized That In His Life He Had Accepted Secondary Experience -- The Experience Of Reading Someone Else's Thoughts -- Over Real Life.