Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Novelist known as the queen of crime, with over sixteen million books sold, writing stories of family, revenge, and gangsters.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
The book
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:02What's your favorite way of killing a character if they have to go?
I think it depends who they are and what they've done to annoy me. Oftentimes with my characters, you know, I know that they're going to die at some point in the book. It's just I have to make up my mind which will be the best demise really.
Presenter asks
3:03How disciplined are you as a writer?
Structure. My publishers have been listening, so I should say yes. I just work all night. I find it's best for me the night. I love the night. I've always had trouble sleeping. I've never been a great sleeper. … Ten at night when everybody else is getting ready to, you know, watch something or read something, get ready, I start getting ready to work and I can work to eight or nine in the morning. I've worked for twenty hours before an hour stretch. I'm always playing music. Whatever era I'm writing in is what music that I play.
Presenter asks
5:24What do you think it is in us, the readers, that is so attracted to sort of the worst of life?
I think the thing that we're most afraid of is our biggest, biggest sort of entertainment now, you know, is murder and death. Unfortunately, it's true. So it's the fun. … I think it is a part of that is confronting the things that we're afraid of. But also, I think people like to try and work out who did it. I think you read different books for different reasons. I think a lot of people. Read mysteries because they want to solve the mystery, or they like to, you know, they want to be entertained, it's a puzzle, they want to be entertained. I like to see how things progress. The big part of the book for me is is as it all opens up, everything starts to open up and all the layers come away.
A.J. Cronin
One of the first books that I bought from a jumble [sale] when I was a kid was A.J. Cronin's Hatters Castle. ... So I'd probably take Hatters Castle because it is a book that I reread over and over again.
The luxury
Not recorded.
Presenter asks
10:59What impact, long-term impact, did your Catholic schooling have upon you?
I was at the Catholic school. It was just when I got older. I wasn't at Catholic school. I got expelled from the convent. What for? I was reading The Betsy, Harold Robbins. Crazy stuff. Yeah, I remember my mum going up the school and the nun saying, you know, she was reading this book. And my mum said, well, I'm a married woman with five children and I don't know what that book's about. Insinuating you're a nun, how do you know what the fuck's about? And it all sort of deteriorated after that, and then I left. Yeah.
Presenter asks
23:56How did your success fit in with the people you knew?
Except I was banned tax. But all that aside, funny things is do you know it's funny, but I've still got every friend I had at school all these years later. And I live a lot of the the year, if I can, out in Northern Cyprus. I have a house there, I have shops there, I've got bookshops. I always wanted bookshops and I I opened them in Northern Cyprus. And we were all around my pool. There was about seven of eight of us from school and we'd been best friends since we were eleven. And who'd have thought all those years ago that we would all end up sitting all together still forty years on?
“I quite enjoy killing people. I know that sounds terrible, but it it has to be done and I like to do it in it in a good way.”
“I liked men, but I couldn't eat a whole one.”
“The euphoria went to terror and I was frightened because it was just so much money”
“I think after forty years of looking after children, I think I've earned the right to say, Talago, I've loved having you all.”