In writing about Harold and Maureen with their terrible unspoken secret, and all those people that Harold meets as he walks to save a friend's life, I was trying to celebrate the ordinary people.
The characters in my stories all have quite loud lives in my head. It's a relief to get them on the page. Often they come from people I've noticed or overheard - but that is only a part of them. It's only by writing that I discover who these people really are.
'Perfect' is about a set-up that looks perfect from the outside - beautiful country house, beautiful wife and mother, everything where it should be - and the deep fissures that, in fact, lie beneath that. 'Perfect' was partly a response to the shock of my first book, 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry,' being a success.
Being with her was the same as staring into the sun; he saw nothing, and yet when he looked away, there she was, a raucous white light imprinted at the heart of everything
But maybe it's what the world needs. A little less sense, and a little more faith.
