Brian Spittles

Having a first novel published when you are past the age for a free TV licence, and have the scars from a double heart bypass, might seem a bit late. But I have been busy earning a living, and learning a little about life; as a labourer, a clerk, a kitchen hand, a teacher, an academic, an international lecturer, and a father and grandfather, ending up enjoying the delights of rural Devon.

I wanted, for many years, to write a novel using a narrator revealing his own life story. Dickens, however has achieved it so well in Great Expectations, etc. there's no point in it. The option was still open to write a biography in the form of a novel, but a biography suggests an editor. Usually the editor's work is done before publication and I wanted a work that broke the rules a bit, such as having the editor work on the manuscript whilst outlining the narrative, taking up Joseph Conrad's idea of the unreliable narrator.

This method gave the possibility of some ambiguity. The novel doesn't start with the main character's name and dates for instance. How much is the text actual autobiography, to what extent is it fiction?

The protagonist is involved throughout in a search for identity. This is a search everyone might recognise within their own lives. The novel becomes general, universal, rather than narrowly specific. You will find other themes common to many lives: class, culture, shifting perspectives, states of instability, the influence of historical events, and so on. Test the book against your own life experiences.