INTERVIEW WITH JIM CRACE

Jim Crace has just had a very close shave. ‘This time last year I abandoned a book. I’d sold it in America and in Britain, I’d spent the money, they’d want the money back. We’d lose the house. It was a really, really serious situation,’ he remembers. ‘You always think, don’t lose your nerve, persevere . . . And in the past it’s always worked.’ This time it didn’t.  ‘I thought I’d lost my mojo. I thought, “I’ve got a copy date, I’ve got to deliver a book at Christmas. I haven’t got a book to write.” I was in deep shit. That was on the Tuesday. I started Harvest on the Friday.’ He mimes wiping sweat from his brow. ‘So I wrote that book in six months and I delivered it on the same day that I should have delivered the old one. Bloody hell, I thought, that was a narrow escape. I felt like some kid in a boy’s comic: “Phew! That was a close one.”’

ON THE FUTURE OF BRITISH FICTION [NONE MORE PORTENTOUS]

Totally beside myself with DELIGHT to say that THIS is happening. Pat Waugh and I have brought together some excellent dudes, inc. China Miéville, Stewart Home, Jim Crace, Maureen Freely and Vic Sage, to argue the toss about the future of the British novel. There's finger pointing, doomsaying, soothsaying and some enthusiastic repping of the GOOD LADS. And it has an extremely delectable cover by Jamie George. Buy here.

IT GOT A BIT LIKE BIBLICAL