Will Self

His field was urban planning, urban and regional planning.

His first book was called Cities in Flood.

about the unrestricted growth of London.

If you think of a novel like Orwell's Coming Up for Air, his description of the salesman's life in the 30s, that was the environment in which my father had grown up, and he was obsessed by the idea of rational urban planning.

That's why we lived in Amsterdam.

They were drunk and had sex, and she got pregnant with my immediately older brother when she was recently divorced from Robert Adams, her first husband, and obviously a bit of a gay divorcee, though not very gay.

And there was a drunken encounter.

I know so much about it.

Including the fact that she knew she had condoms in the drawer.

And chose not to produce them.

Yes, and I think that, you know, I tried to get this in the novel, you know.

The war gave a lot of women...

Freedom, including my mother.

She was in her early 20s.

She was in New York.

She had a job.

She worked for the Book of the Month Club.

She met people.

She knew intellectuals.

Her husband was away in the Pacific.