Maggie O’Farrell

I think that would feel very grandiose of me to say that.

I mean, all I can say is that the novel itself, you know, is fiction and there's quite a lot of it that's true and quite a lot of it that I've had to fill in the gaps, you know, because it's not really that easy to find a lot of traces of your relatives.

I mean, it's not even that long ago, really, but obviously Ireland was undergoing a huge...

upheaval at that time so the records are are incomplete so for me itself the novel itself feels a bit like a myth you know a lot of myth has there has elements of truth in it and a lot of fanciful imagining as well so that's so as i've written i've written my own myth maybe that's less grandiose

It is a bit, Will.

I don't have a favourite child.

I don't, actually.

I mean, it's funny, sometimes I'll be writing a section...

about Liam or Ender, and I would think, oh, it's a problem because my love for this character is going to take over the whole book.

And then I'd come on to the next section, it would be at Rosie Eugene, and I'd think, oh no, this one's going to... So I genuinely don't.

I love them all in different ways.

But at the end of any manuscript, you've got to go through it making sure that it's all balanced.

There isn't one character that's running away with the book.

But I don't think there was.

It all felt quite balanced to me, hopefully.

I don't know.

I think there was...

Yeah, there was definitely a day where I knew that something really dramatic, there's a very dramatic thing that happens towards the end which changes everybody's fates, all the characters' fates in the book.

And I knew that was coming and I was slightly looking forward to it.

And I knew there was the day.