I have been answering readers’ letters for fifty years, and the same questions arrive with every book. With this one there is a new question on top of all the others, and I shall deal with it first, because I know it is the one you want answered.
Yes. After fifty years of storytelling I decided the time had come to write my final novel, and this is it.
I am often asked whether I might change my mind. I am eighty-six. A novel of a hundred and fifty thousand words takes more than twenty drafts, and it takes a great deal out of you. That is the honest answer.
Why stop now?
Because Adam & Eve has proved the most satisfying thing I have ever written, and there is a great deal to be said for finishing on the book you are proudest of.
Will you write anything else at all?
I did not say I would stop writing. I said I would stop writing big novels. Those are not quite the same thing.
I am considering more short stories. There is screen adaptation work, which I enjoy more than I expected to. And there are several other projects based on my existing titles that I am looking at with considerable interest.
So no, I am not putting down the pen. I am putting down the very heavy end of it.
THE QUESTION BEHIND ALL THE OTHERS
Is Adam & Eve based on a true story?
The history is real. The war is real. The date the whole book turns on is real, and rather more important than most people realise.
The two of them are mine. So is the idea that links them to Hitler, and I have had a reader write to ask whether I found that somewhere. I did not. It is my invention, entirely.
Two children are born on the same day, the eleventh of November, 1918, the day the First World War ended. One is the daughter of an Earl, whose father wanted a son so that the title and the estate could pass on. One is the son of a shepherd on that same estate, whose father wanted a daughter, because he was certain a boy would end up going to war.
You follow them from that first day, through childhood and school and university, to the fifteenth of September, 1940, when they cause Adolf Hitler to change his mind.
What actually happened on 15 September 1940?
It is now remembered as Battle of Britain Day, and it was one of the decisive days of the war. Hitler changed his mind three times about whether to invade Britain, despite four hundred thousand soldiers being lined up, the ships being ready, and the aircraft sitting on the runway.
I asked myself a novelist’s question. What if he had changed it only twice?
Is it a love story or a thriller?
Both, and I did not set out to do that. It is probably the first time in my life I have written a book that is genuinely both at once. That is simply the way the pen moved.
Do I need to have read anything else of yours first?
No. It is a standalone novel and it has nothing to do with any of my series. Start here if you like, though I would be delighted if you did not stop here.
Not a word of it. Everything you need is in the book. If you finish it wanting to know which parts were real, that is exactly what the True Story page is for.
How long is it?
Around four hundred and sixty pages, which several readers have told me they got through faster than they intended. One of them rang me at ten past three in the morning to complain about it.
THE TITLE, THE CHARACTERS AND THE ENDING
Why is it called Adam & Eve?
Those are the names of my two children, born on the same day at opposite ends of English life. I shall let you draw your own conclusions about the rest, since you will draw them anyway.
Are Adam and Eve based on real people?
They are not based on any one individual. Characters never come entirely out of a novelist’s imagination. They are a composite of people you have met and known over the years, and one advantage of having written for fifty years is that I have met a great many people. You steal a trait here, a failing there.
Will you explain the ending?
I will not. I have refused for every book I have written and I am not going to break the habit on the last one.
Signed copies appear from time to time through Goldsboro Books in London and Poisoned Pen in Arizona. My newsletter is the fastest way to hear when.
Is there a special edition for readers outside the United Kingdom?
There are editions in a good many countries, and I have written a separate introduction for one or two of them. Your local bookseller will know what is available where you are.
FILM, TELEVISION AND WHAT COMES NEXT
Will there be a film or a television series?
A film is in development. I am not yet able to tell you more than that, and I have learned over fifty years not to promise anything until somebody is actually holding a camera.
Will there be a sequel?
No. I have written my last novel. I am not going to write a second last novel.
WHAT TO READ NEXT
If I loved this, what should I read of yours?
Kane & Abel, which more than half my readers still tell me is the best thing I have ever written. It is also about two men born on the same day at opposite ends of the world, so you may see why the idea has never entirely left me alone.
What should I read that is not by you?
I have made two lists. The novels that taught me what 1940 actually felt like, and the thrillers and histories I went back to while I was writing.
