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| Photograph by Jo and Rob Whitworth |
Patrick is a favourite here - we've reviewed several of his novels and he did a Q&A feature with us on publication of Mother's Boy (find links to all these at the end of this piece). Pictured above in his west Cornwall garden, Patrick is currently on tour with his latest novel Love Lane, but kindly found time to give us his choices in various categories.
Book? It’s impossible to pick a favourite book as I so love reading that frequently my favourite is the one currently holding me in thrall. In homage to my father, who loved them dearly, I’m currently rereading Trollope’s Barchester novels and finding them infinitely more subtle and feminist than I remember them. Doctor Thorne and Framley Parsonage are wonderful on love and economics, but they also contain marvellously free spirited women like Miss Dunstable. Highly recommended.
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TV drama? We’re addicted to the world drama offerings on Channel 4. However terrible - and many are marvellously gripping - they give such fascinating insights into domesticity in other cultures.
Place to eat? A great treat of the Penzance LitFest is nipping across the road after a really good author talk to feast in the Honey Pot. They do delicious cakes and serious brunches.
Ideal day? I never lie in but I love waking really early and going back to bed with tea and biscuits for us both. I’d like that to be followed by a beehive inspection where I found only good things, an unexpected jaunt somewhere pretty for lunch with Aidan and then a sunny walk by the sea with the dogs. I’ve included no work in there but a few good hours of writing between bees and the unexpected lunch would lend the day an extra fillip.
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Film? Bette Davis’ masterpiece, Now Voyager, is always deeply nourishing on revisiting. It’s at once witty, sad and wonderfully clear eyed in its portrayal of depression, maternal oppression and the small, but significant triumphs in life.
Podcast or radio programme? I’m afraid that, since being diagnosed with Ménière’s Disease and having to wear hearing aids, I have become such an audiobook addict that podcasts and radio programmes have been elbowed aside. I’m currently doing a lot of dog walking and gardening to the accompaniment of David Rintoul’s heroic reading of Proust.
TV drama? We’re addicted to the world drama offerings on Channel 4. However terrible - and many are marvellously gripping - they give such fascinating insights into domesticity in other cultures.
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| Photograph by Jim Champion |
Favourite walk? Right on my doorstep lies the beautiful 3 kilometre circuit across our fields and down the cliff path to Nanjizal then along the cliffs around Mill Bay towards Land’s End and home again across a different run of our fields. It may bore the dogs but I love noting the small changes from week to week on the same walk, the flowers, the weather, the insect and bird life.
Place to eat? A great treat of the Penzance LitFest is nipping across the road after a really good author talk to feast in the Honey Pot. They do delicious cakes and serious brunches.
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| Photograph by Tim Sheerman-Chase |
A place that's inspired your writing? People always assume that Cornwall must be a great inspiration to me, but I seem to have drawn equally on my childhood memories of growing up in Winchester, the beautiful cathedral city where I lived from seven to twenty-one.
Ideal day? I never lie in but I love waking really early and going back to bed with tea and biscuits for us both. I’d like that to be followed by a beehive inspection where I found only good things, an unexpected jaunt somewhere pretty for lunch with Aidan and then a sunny walk by the sea with the dogs. I’ve included no work in there but a few good hours of writing between bees and the unexpected lunch would lend the day an extra fillip.
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| Photograph by Krzysztof Ziarnek |
Tree? Right outside out library window is a melaleuca linarifolia or Snow In Summer. Its delicate leaves smell like the best, headiest cough sweets and every July it is covered in flowers that look exactly like snowflakes. It’s one of the first trees we planted when we met and I’m moved that it not only survived but is thriving somewhere so unlike its native Australia.
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| Photograph by Linda Newbery |
Season? Autumn. I love the drawing in of nights, the reaching for knitwear, the lighting of the season’s first log fire.
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| Dawlish Warren: photograph by David Gubler |
Mode of transport? Happily, given how many hours I spend on them during a year when I have a novel to promote, I adore train journeys. I hardly ever drive beyond the Tamar but think nothing of spending nine hours staring out of a train window.
Thank you, Patrick, and we hope your tour is bringing Love Lane to a great many appreciative readers!
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1 comment:
A lovely piece! I like the sound of that walk. I must give Trollope another go - I was put off by 'doing' Barchester Towers for O-level, with a teacher who bore an unfortunate resemblance to the odious Mr Slope.
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