Teaching high school was my real training as a novelist: it got me out of my head, and (at least a little) out of books, and invested me in the lives….

Whenever I go to New York I try to soak up as much live music as I can, including as many nights at the opera as I can manage..

I studied opera, and when I left conservatory I told myself I would never sing in public again..

I think history is only ever invisible when it abets your sense of self, your desires, your ambitions, when it carries your life along in a kind of f….