Interview with Tony MacNabb

Q: How did you get into writing?

A: I don't think you can write until you're grown up, and to be grown up you have to face the reality of death. It's no accident that I started to write in earnest when my parents died, when I was in my mid-30s. In most parts of the world, people are confronted by that reality a whole lot earlier. Like, before they're 5 years old.

Q: What had you been doing up until then?

A: Getting expensively educated - I did French and German at Oxford - and then racketing around in an unfocused way. I worked at the wrong things and made believe that there was always tomorrow. These days my screensaver reads Tempus Fugit.

Q: Sounds like a hippie trajectory.

A: Sort of. It's odd to think that we once imagined there was somewhere to 'drop out' to. There isn't, except maybe a mouldy caravan in a field somewhere. Anyway, I had the long hair and the bad habits, and affected disengagement from straight society. Actually I wanted what it had to offer but on my terms. Dickhead, I think describes my attitude back when I was in my 20's.

Q: Sounds like you haven't much time for the counterculture.

A: What counterculture? Seriously, ask Felix Dennis. He knows. Or maybe Howard Marks.