Trio by William Boyd review – superbly wry and wise Set on a Brighton film set in 1968, this showbiz story is intricate and funny – but should William Boyd be taking more risks?

Written for The Guardian   Trio is William Boyd’s 16th novel – and that’s before we get on to the dozen or so screenplays for film and television. How does someone produce so much work? I don’t know the man’s personal circumstances, but he must have angel armies who ring his desk and fend off…

Obituary: Philip Roth was one of America’s greatest novelists – his real subject was not Jewishness, or New Jersey, but the human condition

OBITUARY WRITTEN FOR THE ECONOMIST:   IF THERE is one detail of Philip Roth’s biography that is worth knowing, it is not that he was Jewish or that he had no children or that he was born in New Jersey—it is that he preferred to write standing up at a lectern. There are pages of…

Here Come The Druids

Written for Prospect Magazine:   I am on the rail replacement bus service outside East Midlands Parkway train station, which itself lies resplendent beneath the ravishing architectural solicitation that is Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in the rain. I am on the top deck with three other men. One has a gold tooth, another a shaven head…

Flash Fish

This is the age of aquariums: young men are paying a fortune to “aqua-scape” their indoor fish tanks—and parting with up to £250,000 for a single fish. Why?  Written for Prospect Magazine:   We’re waiting for the suicide fish. It is Monday night. We’re in expensive territory—Notting Hill, west London—and we’re staring at a huge…

Lost in Translation

  Novelist Edward Docx had to know what it feels like to be lost—truly lost—in the Amazon. So he went to Brazil and hired some men to leave him in the jungle. Written for Prospect Magazine:   Our troubles began with the translator. Undeniably, José was a well-meaning man with a great many characteristics that the…

If I Ruled The World

  Most novelists and poets are broke. But why aren’t we getting a bailout? We’ve been no worse at our jobs than the bankers. Written for Prospect Magazine:   “Dude, where’s my cheque? Either this is not a recovery, or you forgot to mail out our cheques while the recession was on.” “That’s what you’d…