Some chapters could be pure romantic comedy, some more dramatic, some farcical, others sombre or melancholy. Whatever the book's faults, the structure seemed like a fine idea, the episodic nature a virtue.
I went back to the manuscript and wrote the first half again from scratch, then continued on to the end, completing the second draft in late 2008. I began my writing career as a screenwriter, where the emphasis is always on action and dialogue, rather than internal, emotional journeys. The general consensus seemed to be that I wasn't making the most of the third-person novel form. While working on the Tess scripts, I listened to the advice of a few trusted readers. Even his greatest enthusiasts would have a hard time claiming Hardy as a great comic writer. There are one or two moments of his fatalism – Dexter's long letter that slips down the side of a sofa in a Bombay nightclub is the most obvious act of larceny – but mine was very much an urban book and, for the most part, a comedy. I wish I could claim that some of Hardy's prose style had rubbed off on my own work, but I can't quite see it. I took a break here to write the scripts for – quite coincidentally – the BBC adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
I wrote the first half quite happily and quickly, right up until the day in 1995 when Emma and Dexter end their friendship in a Soho restaurant. This one would be about the 20 years after – how do we change as we approach middle-age, how do we remain the same?īut how does a novelist sum up 20 years? How is the material selected and contained? That passage from Tess provided a clue, and the novel became 20 snapshots of a seemingly ordinary day, the significance of which would lie, sly and unseen, throughout the novel. My first novel had been about a 19-year-old, stumbling through university.
I had recently turned 40, was about to become a father for the second time, and it felt vaguely inappropriate to write about young love in that same tone of voice. While I remain fond of my first two books, I didn't want to write another romantic comedy with an affable, accident-prone, self-deprecating male lead. In 2007, I found myself casting around for an idea for my third novel. For a while, I think I may even have taken to quoting it at parties. To my 17-year-old self, this seemed a thrillingly morbid idea, the notion of an anti-birthday lurking sly and unseen in the calendar.
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