My earliest reading memory
The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton was my first book without pictures; I was seven, at school in England. What hooked me was a concept: a ladder poked through the clouds at the top of a tree. Above was a world where laws and norms were different, where you could cavort like an innocent – but after a time, an unsettled wind blew in and swept the land away. I still find this describes our passage through seasons of life.
My favourite book growing up
One that strangely haunted me was Arthur Miller’s play Death of a Salesman. The mix of delusion and family dysfunction was compelling. By way of salute, the boy in my novel Vernon God Little namechecks the play’s Studebaker as his life spins out of control.
