Meg Rosoff

I mean, he's not exactly an obsession of mine.

Bloodied but unbowed.

Under the bludgeonings of chance, exactly.

But, you know, that was one of the things where I used the expression and then I thought, where did that come from?

Because, of course, one of the main characters is an actor.

And so we've all probably met an actor sometime in our lives and they're all ridiculously pretentious and always quoting something or other.

I suppose because they have to memorise so much, so they've got it all in their heads.

Well, do you know, more or less by mistake, I slightly based him on the sister and brother-in-law of the people who live next door to me on the beach.

And I didn't quite realize I was doing it at the time, but I'm terrified of them reading the book because I think he might recognize a bit of himself.

And I hope he doesn't take that personally because he is quite a well-known actor.

I mean, he's not well-known, well-known, but, you know, he's a working actor in England.

And I have no idea whether he throws his heart and soul around the stage like a rubber chicken, but it is a nice line, isn't it?

Let's interpret recent rather loosely.

And that's a friend of mine in New York sent me a New York Review of Books published copy of a book called A High Wind in Jamaica that was written in 1929 by Guy

called Richard Hughes.

Now, I had never heard of it, but she's a good friend and I trust her.

And it's a beautiful edition.

And I read it and it blew the top of my head off.

And I started asking everyone I knew whether they'd ever heard of it.

And all the men of a certain age, i.e.