Olivia Laing knows they will irritate other writers with the story of how their second novel came to be. The Silver Book began on a writing trip to Rome and was ultimately completed in 10 weeks. “It was almost as if I tuned a radio and then the voices started, and all I had to do was get the story down. It was absolutely uncanny – very strange,” Laing recalls.
From the back bench of a Soho restaurant, the 48-year-old throws their head back in toddler’s torment: “I want it to happen again!” OK, but this is still very annoying for the rest of us, I say. “Thank God that I’ve written so many other books that were agonisingly painful and took years to write because otherwise I’d be insufferable,” they reply. Their first novel Crudo was produced even quicker but its autobiographical scraps were collected, as much as they were written, from Laing’s real life. This novel – a queer romance narrative of lust, politics and cinema – was far more involved, grainy with texture, and yet: “It was one of those eerie experiences that happens once in a lifetime.” I’m still horrified. “That isn’t really how books happen – it’s labour.”
