My main terror as publication approached was that readers from the North would reject Trespasses, which was a great distraction from worrying about the reviews. How did the reception of Trespasses differ on each side of the Atlantic? Food can express love, resentment, anger it can be used to seduce or to punish and it can be a signifier of aspiration or class. It is an effective tool in fiction, I think. Later I trained as a cook so, from the outset, wrote about food without thinking about it. You worked for many years as a chef and there is a wonderful dinner party set-piece in Trespasses? Do you like writing about food? Do you find it an effective way to reveal character?Įven as a child I was fascinated by what people eat, lurking around a friend’s kitchen to watch her mother slop a Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie from a tin, waiting for the magical reconstitution of a Vesta curry - my own mother did not serve processed food. Moving to the south made me realise how utterly exhausting it was to live that way. There were lots of individual incidents, but what I remember most is the tension. What are your main memories of the conflict – both personal and public? Has living south of the Border influenced your perspective?
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