I was brought up on a remote farm in the Lake District in a house with two families. My parents had been together since they were thirteen, when my mother also met her French penfriend. Ten years later my parents got married, and so did the French penfriend and my mother's cousin. They bought the farm together and brought up 5 children there, always insisting it wasn't a commune - hard to get away with in the 1970s!
The Repercussions
My father was an Oxford mathematician, then a sheep farmer, then a priest. My French aunt was educated by Catholic nuns, then became an evangelical Christian later in life. My childhood was an odd combination of the practical, the rational, and the deeply religious. I was even 'saved' by Billy Graham as a teenager. Naturally, now, I'm an atheist who's never settled in any one job.
I spent five years working for an international peacebuilding organisation. A trip to Rwanda where I saw 25 classrooms full of the bodies of people killed in the genocide made me suddenly understand what war meant. That's the reason I've written two novels about conflict. Sub-consciously it's always there.
I've lived in Brighton three times. I always seemed to move there in the winter, which is not the best time of year to move to a seaside town. I love the crazy Orientalist mash-up that is the Pavilion - it was in my head for seven years before I wrote a novel set there.
Books have always been my salvation - a refuge from the rest of the world and a way of expanding my horizons. Growing up in the Lakes in the 1970s we didn't have a TV (our farm was too remote to get a signal) but we did have a house full of books. Every night I used to curl up in bed and read for hours. I still do.
I could be described as either a very indiscriminate reader or someone of catholic tastes. I'm equally happy with works of great literature or easy romps. I have a great fondness for Jilly Cooper and Jackie Collins, probably because they take me back to my teenage years, when I was desperate to find out about sex and thought their worlds were full of glamour.
I always thought you had to choose between being a solitary writer in a garret or having kids. I'm glad I eventually realised those choices weren't incompatible. In the last six years I've published three books and had two babies. It's been pretty busy…
I've never been romantically involved with the father of my children. We're both gay, but decided to do this thing together. We live in London with the kids and his boyfriend. It's an odd situation but it works.
Since having kids I've become addicted to running. Partly to fix my wreck of a body, partly to get a bit of time to myself. It's when I think.
I like red wine, a lot.