About.
I was born in Windsor, England in 1960
1979-82: I read Classics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge
1982: I marry for first time
1982-85: I train as a social worker, with a view to working in the
Probation Service
1984: birth of first of five sons
1985 - 86: I work as a psychiatric social worker in Fulbourn Hospital,
Cambridge
1986 and 1988: birth of two more sons
1988: I work with young offenders, and begin my first novel
1991: My first marriage ends
1993: I marry for a second time and win a Betty Trask Prize
1995 and 1998: two more sons are born
1998: I move to West Sussex
1999 to the present day: publish four more novels, and The Conversations, 66 reasons to start talking I also teach Latin and Greek.
If there’s an overarching theme of my novels, it’s love. It’s our human curse to have our minds and hearts trapped in our bodies, which are all too solid, bodies which are beautiful, ugly or indifferent, and which will ultimately wither and die. My personal strategy for dealing with our fate is to be honest about how difficult it is to be human, how difficult it is to find meaning in our lives. Everything I write tackles these questions head on, even my two comic novels, The Glorious Flight of Perdita Tree and Possibly a Love Story. All my characters, the lonely and the less lonely, yearn to connect with others. How successful they are is for you, the reader, to judge.