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When your first book is a bestseller

17 September 2019

‘Sometimes I feel like I talk about these things too dramatically. I'm sure some writers might read this and go, "For f*** sake you just published a book. Get over yourself." But you have to understand - before, there was none of it, then everything changed...

It's changed my life, and made it so interesting and exciting. So happy, on a cellular level...

I think it's an exciting situation when motherhood, or maternity, or lack of motherhood, is made more nuanced and put in the canon alongside the existential worries of universal man and war and class Because we've all had a mother and father, whether or not they've been in our lives, and we model our behaviours on that. It just throws up all of the things, doesn't it?'

Jessie Burton, author of just-published The Confession, The Muse and her bestselling first novel The Miniaturist in The Sunday Times' Culture.