If you haven’t read the book yet – please note, this interview contains spoilers.

There are three strong characters in the novel. Who interested you most and why?

I saw all three characters as quite distinct from each other and Nicholas was the character who came to me first. In general I tend to prefer writing men, rather than women; I find it easier. I wanted to get the sense that this was someone who was quite morally ambiguous, so that the reader’s response to him would shift back and forth. I thought of him as the most complex.

As far as Lydia was concerned, I wanted her to be quite an unlikeable character, someone who, on the surface, was everything that someone would want, without much underneath. I almost felt I didn’t know her. And similarly, in a way, I saw Louise as someone that the reader wouldn’t know that well, someone who had an air of mystery about her but who had a lot going on under the surface, so the opposite of her mother.

And where did the idea for the book come from?

The scene where Louise is following Nicholas on the street came to me first. At that point I didn’t know why the woman was following the man at all, I just liked the idea of a woman following a much older man, and leaving it quite ambiguous – was it, for example, a sexual thing or not? It evolved from there.

I played around with ideas of how the plot would develop for quite a while. Originally I thought Louise would die at the end so I was working towards that, but as I continued writing that felt too melodramatic, since the pivotal point had been Lydia’s death, so I had to shift my expectations. But there were certain characters, like Adam and Naomi, who I hadn’t banked on at all. I had seen Nicholas as an eternal bachelor, who hadn’t quite got over his affair with Lydia, but then I started feeling that it would be a lot richer and more complex if he did have a family, if he had slipped into a different role.

The theme of this novel is very dark and your website mentions that your next novel is even darker: what attracts you to such darkness?

You don’t necessarily have to experience darkness to understand it and I think there is darkness, or sadness, within most people, even if it hasn’t been tested to the limit. I haven’t experienced a lot of tragedy but I know that capacity is there, and for me the book was about pushing that into the open. Certainly as far as infidelity goes it’s a subject that I personally don’t feel very ambiguous about. I’m pretty anti it, as most people probably are, but I was interested in trying to create a situation in which someone’s infidelity was sympathised with to an extent. I think writing should be about pushing your own moral boundaries as well as those of your readers and characters.

Louise’s life seems to be haunted by the lives of her parents: do you think that is common?

I think we are all shaped by our parents to varying degrees, most people probably more so than they’d like to admit. My own family life is nothing like Louise’s but I have a father who’s a strong character and he himself saw some parallels between Nicholas’s personality and his own, even though that wasn’t explicitly intended on my part. Powerful people in your life can influence your writing whether you mean them to or not.

The incest is not commented on in the book, either by Louise or Nicholas. If anything, it’s skated over. Why is that?

Louise and Nicholas are both people who have grown used to repressing their feelings, and to pushing painful memories underground. I initially considered the possibility of them having an explicit conversation about Louise’s relationship with Adam and its implications, but it felt wrong. When push came to shove, I don’t think either of these characters would want to face up to the unpleasantness of the situation, at least not immediately, and I wanted to reflect that in how much – or rather, how little – the reader was told about how they were feeling about it. Ultimately, it’s just another secret that both of them will have to keep.

You went to Oxford University and set the book in the same town; what made you choose it as your location, apart from familiarity?

Familiarity was important and although I thought about setting the book in London, which I know better, it didn’t feel quite right. London is such a huge, sprawling place, and although Oxford is a busy city too, there’s a more enclosed and insular feel to it, an introspective feel. To me that was important because the characters are so bound up in their own worlds that they don’t really let the outside world intrude too much into them. I liked the idea of a setting that reflected that.

Why is it the ‘art’ of losing?

Ah yes, the title, it took me quite a long time to get to the title; I probably didn’t have one until I was about halfway through at least. Obviously loss is a big theme from both Louise and Nicholas’s perspective, but particularly for Louise: she doesn’t have any obvious talent, ambition or direction in her life and almost the only thing that she’s good at is tapping into the past, connecting with that sense of loss. So whilst it’s not exactly an art, it is something which she holds precious, in the same way that other people would hold a talent or an ambition precious.

It’s also a quotation from a poem by Elizabeth Bishop. The poem itself is not particularly relevant, but that’s how I came across the phrase. I felt I wanted something to do with loss so I Googled for quotations and that’s what came up and it seemed to fit. In the past I’ve always had a title first so it was bit unsettling not to have one. Ideally I wanted to have something to do with identity because I feel that that is such an important theme in the book, but I couldn’t quite find the right phrase.

Why is identity so important a theme for you?

From a conceptual point of view I’ve always had an interest, but I also think that the idea of self, how we define ourselves, is central to life, as is the way that others define us. The synthesis between those two things, or the disjunction between them, is fascinating. I often feel that the perceptions we have of other people are wildly inaccurate or at least only reflect one aspect of a personality but it’s something that you never quite know unless you’re very close and even then it may not accurately reflect what’s going on inside. I tried to play with that theme, via Louise changing her name and almost to an extent becoming her mother. But since she doesn’t know Lydia she has to create a different self who is perhaps like Lydia but perhaps isn’t. I had the sense that she was trying to search for something deeper about her mother which didn’t even exist.

What was it like to cross the divide from unpublished, unagented writer to agented and sold writer?

It was something that I’d been anticipating for a long long time and although I’m mercifully young to have a first novel published I do feel quite old to be doing it. I’d built up in my head this mystique of what it would be like to have an agent and a publisher; I used to lie in bed thinking about it, so when it actually happened it felt quite natural: this is what I always thought I would do, so what took me so long?!

At the same time there was a lot of excitement, particularly in the agenting process, because once you have an agent you hand it over to them to find a publisher and sort out all the details, whereas finding an agent is something you do by yourself with no one to back you up. I found that part of the process, the submissions process, difficult because I wasn’t used to putting my work out there and part of me didn’t want to. But I got to the point where I thought it’s silly not to try.

Apart from doing an English degree, did you do any courses in creative writing or have you read lots of books on plot?

I’ve never done a course or anything like that because I feel that creative writing MAs have a limited use. I don’t think they can teach you to write, though they can be good for motivation, but that’s something in the past that I’ve never really needed. I also think that there is a certain house style and the work that comes out of them can feel a bit samey, so I consciously didn’t go in that direction.

As far as books go, I read Carole Blake’s From Pitch to Publication quite carefully but I didn’t do extensive studies. I think because I have been writing since I was about five I went for it in my own way, and hoped that that’s what the market wanted too.

Who are your influences as a writer?

My first major influence was Agatha Christie. When I was younger I was really into her. And although I’m not writing murder mysteries as such, I do think the elements of crime and mystery are always going to be part of my writing. As a teenager I was into a lot of writers who are traditionally seen as quite misogynist, like Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis, Julian Barnes and David Lodge, people who women aren’t supposed to like. But I never saw their writing like that; I thought their view of women was quite interesting, maybe not always accurate, but there were certainly some points of recognition. And I think that’s partly why I like writing about men. I feel that I’ve learned from writers who create powerful male characters and that comes quite naturally to me now.

In more recent years, Maggie O’Farrell’s After You’d Gone was a big inspiration for my own novel, because it plays around with tenses and first and third person. I knew I wanted to do that but I wasn’t sure it could work; having read her book, I thought, yes, it can and I’ll give it a go.

How do you think your writing will develop?

I think over time I will move slightly more in the direction of the crime genre. It’s something that has always interested me. It might sound morbid but a book without a death is not a book for me!

Your reputation is a bit like the Wizard of Oz’s: it precedes you but seems rather over the top. Why do you think it is so overblown when you are, in fact, cardigan man with a penchant for cake and the Isle of Wight?

I think you will find that they are zip-up jerseys. Surely a cardigan has buttons? As for my reputation, I think that is a combination of me mouthing off on some sensitive subjects, lazy journalists who were looking for an easy story and some publishers being wary of me when I was a retailer. I have read most of what was written about me and if it were all true then I would probably deserve the reputation I seem to have.

The web is littered with commentary about you. I have to ask: did you really, as Tim Adams pointed out in The Observer, write on Friends Reunited: ‘My life is better than yours’ and why? Were you trying to get back at anyone in particular at school for example?

It was a joke that my friends would understand. The clue was in the name of the site. It is Friends Reunited, not People You Never Knew Reunited or Disingenuous Journos With An Axe To Grind Reunited. Up until the point that Tim Adams mentioned it I had only heard from old friends on the site. Afterwards, all sorts of tossers waded in with abuse. Although, to be fair, I wasn’t overly polite with my responses either.

You left home at 16 and went straight out to work in retail: what made you choose that route?

That’s not quite what happened but is close enough. I left home while doing my A levels and worked nights and weekends to pay the rent. Having submerged myself into the real world it seemed a bit pointless going to university. The lure of a weekly wage was too great.

And what made you decide to move from retail into publishing?

Ahh. Well I was reasonably happy as buying manager at Waterstone’s but the company was introducing a new buying structure and I wasn’t convinced it would work. That and some smaller things sort of combined to make me think about trying something else.

What was your proudest moment in retail and what, so far, is your proudest in publishing?

Almost impossible to answer without sounding like a twat but that doesn’t usually stop me. At Waterstone’s I was immensely proud of the team I had put together. There were some amazing individuals amongst them. A number are still there and doing very well indeed. Others are enjoying success elsewhere; a number of them are buying managers themselves now, some are editors. It was a talented bunch and a pleasure working with them — most of the time.

And you feel proud of every book you publish but there is a particular pleasure when a book or an author you believe in breaks through to a wider audience.

The Friday Project has been in existence for three years and has already gone through several permutations. What is it now, and what is its future?

It is still the only imprint to specialise in taking great web content and making books from it. That gives us a much wider brief than most people think. It isn’t just blogs-to-books, we have cookery books, children’s books, memoir, literary fiction, humour…

Our future plans are very exciting. Our author deals will now all be profit-share arrangements with us splitting the profits of the books 50/50 with the authors. We are soon to announce some bold eBook initiatives and there is more to come.

Many Friday Project books are based on blogs; apart from the obvious technical developments that have enabled this genre to develop, why do you think this form of writing is so popular?

Not so many, but some are and it has to be said that they are among our most successful. Books from blogs, by their very nature, tend to have short, punchy chapters and that can mean a speedier read. I think that is part of the appeal. And also, if you are a fan of a blog then owning the book is a logical next step for many.

And what made you decide to start writing a blog?

Everyone at TFP thought it would be a good idea. Originally it was to drum up some publicity and a number of early posts generated some press and media interest so it did the job there. Over time it has softened a bit and become more of a personal blog with some book recommendations. It gets anywhere up to 1,000 visitors a day and seems to have found its level.

Over and over, both on your blog and in other articles, you emphasise the importance of good writing. Do you think that that is enough in this marketplace?

Not even remotely. A point proved by the fact that most of the writers I think are truly wonderful have never had a huge bestseller — Charles Baxter, Elinor Lipman, Ron Hansen, Sebastian Beaumont, Sjon, I could go on.

Book publishing has survived almost twenty years’ co-existence with the internet, despite doom-mongers saying that books are dead; do you think it will survive the next twenty? And if so, how?

Absolutely. Books are much loved and shall remain so. They may not make up as much of the reading spectrum as they have for the past 50 years or so but they aren’t going anywhere in a hurry.

Once again the UK’s ’unacceptably high’ illiteracy levels are making headlines. Despite £5bn invested in various programmes, British levels of literacy are still below many of the developed nations of the world: in 2003 the UK was ranked 14th and recent government plans to ensure that 95% of the population ‘achieve enough literacy and numeracy to get by in life by 2020′ only bring the UK in line with current 2009 levels elsewhere.

From the vantage point of publishing, trying to reach those who can barely read might seem less important, or much more of a challenge, than reaching those who already buy books or those who could be persuaded to buy one more…at the right price. But from a national perspective illiteracy is a human disaster. Being illiterate prevents engagement with every level of the functioning world, from buying food to reading a map and, crucially, helping the next generation. If a parent can’t read then it’s unlikely their child will find it easy to do so. I found this out when I was a student, through a strange coincidence.

Once a week I taught adult basic education, slipping away from my ivory tower to urban streets to share what I then thought of as my great knowledge. I enjoyed myself, though I doubt I taught or helped anyone much. However, by knowing about the class I did, eventually, help one woman. Stuck in the back of a cab late one night, I started talking to the driver. She was bemoaning the fact that she couldn’t read to her little girl and how upsetting it was now that her daughter wanted a bedtime story every night. At first I thought it was being out at work that was the obstacle, but then she explained that she’d never learnt to read. In passing I mentioned the classes I had been involved with, and suggested that she investigate local adult education in her area. She thanked me, and we moved onto some other topic of conversation.

I thought nothing of this until three years later when I got into the woman’s cab again. She asked me what I did for a living and, having told her that I was a teacher, extraordinarily she relayed the story of having met another teacher in the back of her cab a few years earlier who had told her about classes and how, as a result, she had learnt to read…the teacher we realised was me and whereas she was full of thanks I was amazed that having known one small fact, I had helped her change her life, and hopefully her daughter’s.

It’s a very small story but for her it was a very big one and it showed me how little knowledge it took to change a life for the better. Not having that knowledge is something affecting a large proportion of our population, their children and, to be brutal, the future of publishing.

Also, as two of the biggest films of the New Year so far - The Reader and Che - point out, in fragile political times, when economies are stretched and jobs and livelihoods threatened, an illiterate population is much easier to control and influence. And not always for the better. I’m not suggesting that the current economic climate is equivalent to 1940s Germany or 1950s Cuba but these are strange days indeed…

As Robert McCrum pointed out in the Guardian book recommending in the London literary world is difficult since, at its worst, it can be rather self-congratulatory and incestuous. Most are scrupulous (The Economist won’t even review books by its writers, except when asked) but for those who are not the satire of Private Eye lies in wait.

But recommendations, whether by a friend of a writer, or others, and whether taken with a pinch of salt or not, are always helpful as far as I’m concerned. How else is it possible to negotiate the sea of available books (or films, or hotels, or whatever you’re choosing) if you haven’t already ripped out a relevant scrap from the paper (or, in the new world, bookmarked the relevant site)? I start, and end every year with a sea of bits of paper, recommending books that I’ve missed, places I want to go and restaurants I’d like to try. I rarely manage 10% of them but I love collecting and storing the ideas, and then trying as many as possible. Finding and sharing the information is as much part of the fun as using it. And I’m not the only one. So, in that internet-spirit of sharing as much as possible, here are my favourite reads from 2008 (including a few, naughty, publishing-insider early reads); I’d love to read yours.

From 2008:

Netherland, Joseph O’Neill
Sorry, inevitable and predictable but there’s a reason it got all those votes.

Run, Ann Patchett
It’s a shame she’s no longer published by 4th Estate because she’s brilliant. The description of a priest realising that, perhaps, life on earth was wonderful and aspiration enough and that aspiring to life eternal was a lure is worth the price of the book alone.

Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri
I’m with the Frank O’Connor shortlisters; there is no competition for her although I still think The Namesake is her best.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery
An off-the-wall story about an intellectual concierge, a teenage girl bent on committing suicide and a rich Japanese man. Told you it was off-the-wall… It reminded me of films such as Amélie and Delicatessan: funny, wise, appealing and somehow totally French.

All the Living, C.E. Morgan (publishes March 09)
If you like Annie Proulx you will love this. But, actually, if you like good writing (of the tight, sparse, precise sort, nothing flowery or overwritten) this is a dream come true. The story of a relationship, and of the nature of desire, it’s a first novel that’s full of the wisdom of years of experience. This is one of the few books that made me want to get on the Tube so that I could read.

The Street Philosopher, Matthew Plampin (publishes Feb 09)
I generally dislike historical fiction (too many monarchs and family trees to negotiate) so this novel, set in the Crimean War, was a complete surprise. Another first novel, pacy, clever without being showy and a brilliantly satisfying story. Reminiscent of Andrew Taylor and Sarah Waters.

Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
Yes, I know it’s been out for years but 2009 should be its moment, unless the film’s dire. How apt that the Winslet-DiCaprio duo should come together for another tale of doomed love.

Obviously that isn’t one I would advocate, since I work in an industry that depends on both increasing, but I do wonder why I buy books and then don’t read them. New books in my flat go onto the bedside table, but somehow even though this is my treat pile often the acquisition of them can be enough and they never get read. Or only partially. For example, this is what I currently have:

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi [love it so far, but can't face it at night so keep abandoning it]
How to be Free, Tom Hodgkinson [my newest acquisition; love the format and so far have spent more time admiring that than reading it]
Nothing to be Frightened of, Julian Barnes [got it signed, talked to the author, love him, his writing and the idea of the book but haven't even glanced at it since I got it home]
Les Ames Grises, Philippe Claudel [yeah, right, I'm really going to read that before going to bed]
Madness, Marya Hornbacher [loved her first novel, haven't started this; think it may be a bit like Satrapi in its suitability for bedtime reading]
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon [I keep reminding myself that I really want to read this but somehow never get to it]
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen [third time, have abandoned in the middle of the cruise passage; again not sure I can face the enormity of the story faced by the oldies just before sleep]
Do Secrets Count as Sabotage, Helen Salter [Helen's a friend; loved her first book but I've not started this]
Engleby, Sebastian Faulks [mother left this behind on last visit, haven't enjoyed his writing since The Girl at the Lion d'Or and Birdsong so this one is waiting for the next charity shop trip]
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray [borrowed from a friend, have always meant to read it]
Varjak Paw, SF Said [also borrowed, not sure kids' books are what I want at night either]
The Piano Teacher , Janice Y. K. Lee [proof copy from work; perfect bedtime reading but again not started]
The Elephant Keeper, Christopher Nicholson [proof copy; have heard raves about this at work]
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski [this one nearly gets into my Tube bag every week, and again raves at work but I keep putting it off]
The Spanish Civil War, Paul Preston [a period that fascinates me but obviously not that much since I've had the previous edition from work for four years and now I have the revised edition and still haven't read it]
The Almost Moon, Alice Sebold [another mother abandonment; think she finished this one tho]
Something Might Happen, Julie Myerson [halfway through].

So that’s 17 books, several of them from work, several bought and not even started, several abandoned but not yet given away. Is this a classic bibliomaniac disease? Or am I along, with Robins, one of the only sufferers? Why, with books, is owning the object enough of a treat when with everything else, be it music, food, clothing, consumption is all?

Perhaps it’s the promise of what they contain (whether knowledge, pleasure, inspiration). Or perhaps it’s simply that books remain desirable for their own sake, in a way that CDs are not, because their mere presence is attractive (furnishing a room with hardbacks is somehow much nicer, to me at least, than furnishing it with plastic CD cases, reassuring (the unread promise future knowledge, the read remind us of what we already know) and comfortingly low-tech. And having watched the terrifying remake of Survivors on Sunday night (and being old enough to remember it first time round, when power cuts were a daily reality) it’s that last characteristic that seems most pertinent right now.

If all the lights really did go out, which is the next drama facing us this winter according to the Today programme yesterday morning, many other forms of entertainment, from TVs to mobile phones, would simply cease to function. But you could still get into bed, switch on a torch and read a book…which is more than can be said for an iPod. If you think about it in those terms, stockpiling books is as important as stockpiling water in times of crisis. A book, after all, is the most portable and energy-efficient of entertainments; once it’s produced it needs neither charger nor batteries (unless, of course, read under the covers). I was going to ask if there was a cure for my acquisitive tendency, but actually I’m not sure I want one…

Hemingway was once bet that he couldn’t produce a story in just six words. He wrote ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ He won the bet.

But if an entire story can be told in just six words, what about an entire life?

In One Life, Six Words, What’s Yours? hundreds of the famous and not-so famous attempted to do just that, producing six-word summaries of lives lived. Some are heartbreaking (I still make coffee for two; Zak Nelson), others wry (Not quite what I was planning; Summer Grimes) and some rather worrying (I do not intend to mellow; Jeffrey Archer). And over at the Guardian you can join them, creating your own mini-memoir. So far my favourite is Nick Bailey’s ‘Grumpy bastard. Until wife came along.’ What’s yours?

The event was a stark contrast to most author readings. Sitting next to me in Queen Elizabeth Hall was a young woman who lived in London and yet had had to print AA directions to find the South Bank, explaining her journey from Turnpike Lane in great detail to her friends. She was, like many of those present, much younger than the usual literary fan. What’s more, for once the audience was not overwhelmingly white, and those who asked questions were not mostly men. Morrison received standing ovations on her way in, way out, on her way to, and from, the podium. The atmosphere was unlike any other reading I’ve been to, one of whoops and cheering, rather than whispers and clapping. This mostly female, black audience that, even forty years ago, would have been invisible, considers Morrison a god.

Which is probably how another prominent black American is feeling today: god-like, powerful, as if history is about to change forever. Morrison challenged the literary landscape, by writing about experiences that were once not worthy of comment and Barack Obama has done the same, for politics. Whatever the result, he has changed what seems possible in a country that, when he was born, outlawed his parents’ mixed marriage.

In January Morrison switched from supporting her old friend Hillary Clinton, to endorsing Obama, a switch that could be seen both as a desertion of her feminist principles as well as that of an old friend. Was she abandoning her audience and everything she had ever believed? Had race trumped gender in her priorities? Her letter of endorsement suggests that neither race nor gender were at stake for her; her change of heart was determined by who, not what, he was:

‘you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don’t see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom.’

As I write it is predicted that about 50% of the North American population agree with her. But when asked last week if she felt confident about the results, Morrison was candid. She had, she said, seen ‘too many elections stolen’ to take anything for granted. She didn’t know what she’d be doing tonight, bar ‘hiding under the bed’… I, for one, am hoping that she doesn’t have to.