We are talking on the first morning that schools in Scotland are allowed to open, and the house is “weirdly quiet”. Her eldest daughter was born with an immunological disorder: “We live in a state of high alert,” O’Farrell writes in her memoir. “I think anyone who has been through a really severe illness knows that it completely refigures you,” she says. “It is a bit like passing through a fire.” A journalist recently asked her if she could turn back time would she erase the illness. “It uses completely different muscles to writing a novel.” She likes to say that a novel “chooses you” rather than the other way round.

Source: The Guardian March 27, 2021 09:00 UTC