Anne Fine's Blog - Posts Tagged "relationships"

When my daughter was four, we went off to America for seven years because of my husband's job. By the time we came back, our stable, almost unchanging babysitting cooperative of other families with young children had been turned upside down. Divorces, remarriages, chaos. I became fascinated in the nature of passion - how people could suddenly choose to risk all the stability they'd created around themselves and those they loved, simply in order to feel fully emotionally alive again. Up until then, I'd been perfectly happy writing novels for older children, but this was clearly a subject to be explored at an adult level.

The book become darker and darker in the writing. I didn't realise how dark until the first review came in: 'a horror story which rings absolutely true'. But that is passion for you. It's dangerous in every way.

The Killjoy

Seven years in America because of my husband's job just about finished me. I was horribly homesick, and writers are so often happier on their home ground. But he loved living in the States. We tried to keep the marriage together, but in the end it fell apart. (I have a theory that the wedding vows should add another proviso to 'for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health' and that should be 'at home and abroad'. That's harder than anyone admits.)

After we split up I wrote Taking the Devil's Advice. I see it now as a comedic howl of pain against the horrific difficulties of separating where there is a basic incompatibility of choices in life, but no true dislike or hate to spur the parting or make it easier. It's been called the funniest book about divorce ever written and I am proud of that. The plot's pure fiction, but the psychology is as accurate as I can make it, and I'm not surprised that it is many of my adult readers' favourite. It's certainly mine.


Taking the Devil's Advice