In between yet another plumbing crisis, a mercy dash to St George’s hospital, and
the sudden closure of our one-year-old’s day nursery, I managed to slip away to
Broadcasting House to record an interview with Mariella Frostrup, the host of
Open Book on Radio 4. Also taking part in a discussion about The Valley of Unknowing and the literary impact of the Stasi files, was Anna Funder, author of the prize-winning non-fiction bestseller Stasiland – although hers was a disembodied voice emanating from a studio in New York. Spookily enough, Australian Anna’s most recent book, a novel, is set in Berlin in 1932, just like The Einstein Girl, and is based on the
life of an actually existing woman. It came as something of a relief to
discover that the woman in question - and indeed the rest of her story - had nothing to do with the great physicist.
As expected, I thought of many brilliant and memorable
things to say in response to the Mariella’s questions - but only after the whole thing was over
and I was tramping back down a rainy Regent
Street towards the Tube station. Oh well...
The interview, suitably edited, will be broadcast on Radio 4
this Sunday 22nd April at 4pm; and again the following Thursday 26th
at 3.30pm. Details of the whole edition can be found here:
A Podcast of the programme will be available for download soon
after the first broadcast, here:
Late that evening, after further urgent plumbing consultations
and an untimely instance of projectile vomiting from our youngest, I closed a
deal for the North American rights to The
Valley of Unknowing. The venerable firm of
W.W. Norton will publish the book in November, which is quite soon in the
normal run of these things. Norton is reputedly a classy operation, and the editor is
something of a New York
legend. I would have celebrated
on the spot, but it was almost midnight by this time, and I was in danger of
collapsing at my desk. I finally collapsed on the floor beside my son's bed ten minutes later.
