The place to find past issues of the Your Next Book newsletter
– my take on some of the outstanding writing on my bookshelf

I finished the book last night and then had to try to get to sleep. With the momentum of the story gone. I felt as if I’d been turned inside out and all the soft inner bits were facing the world. I felt I’d been brought face to face with the dreadful side of humanity, with what we allow to happen and seem powerless to stop happening.

I love statues. I love them because they put beauty and dignity in public spaces, because they become playgrounds for children, because they tell stories and also because most people don’t care about the stories. They live just their lives around the statues that provide their spaces with height and focus.

The book I wanted to write was one with interwoven timelines. So I took out whole subplots, whole scenes, whole characters, until I got the book down to a reasonable length. I sent it to the editor. It came back with lots of, “You need more here” and “This should be a scene not a transition”.