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Favourite childhood read? I loved Joan Aiken’s Arabel’s Raven. There was something wonderful about this great anarchist, in the shape of a raven, coming to disturb the cosy suburban peace. Mortimer was a real punk. I loved his “Nevermore” answer to everything. Arabel was also incredibly cool, mainly because she levelled such clear-eyed, straightforward questions at all these shady, complicated characters.
What was the first book to make an impact on you? Lorrie Moore’s Like Life. I first read it in my early 20s while living in Buenos Aires, on the 13th floor of a tower block – which felt quite edgy and New York-ish, and therefore a perfect fit for Moore’s angsty, urban stories. Her characters seemed at one remove from ordinary life and relationships, and so conscious of their fragile hold on things. It was the first time I realised you could write very comically about something immensely sad. I also think Lorrie Moore has some of the best one-liners in contempora