The inspirations behind my Booker-longlisted book  

I set out to write about the bond between a father and son despite the deep silence between them. I was drawn to the Outer Hebrides because when we talk about class or sexuality or social upheaval our rural places are so often overlooked. On Harris I found a rich, inspiring culture; a culture shaped by community, with a history of crofting and weaving, in a place that is the stronghold of the Gaelic language and a very devout form of Presbyterianism. There was such richness that I couldn’t help but be inspired. It’s not that I wanted to tell this story now – although the world is as divided as it ever was, and queer people are under increasing attack – but it’s more that this is the story I had to write, and there was nothing that I could do but to write it. 

The book that made me fall in love with reading  

I don’t come from a family of readers and when I was a kid we didn’t have any books at home. But when I was six or seven I used to love studying my big brother’s gatefold LPs. Queen’s A Day at The Races and Pink Floyd’s The Wall were an early education in seduction and sexuality and social anger. They exposed me to things that blew my young mind. 

The book that made me want to become a writer  

The first novel I ever read was Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. I was 17 and the only kid in my English class. My teachers were incredibly patient, because before I could read any novel, they had to teach me how to focus, how to quiet myself and sit with a book. This novel about rural life in 1880s Wessex; a story of fate, class, and the struggle to build a better life, spoke to me on such a profound level. Jude began my love of reading and it gave me the dream that maybe someday I would grow up and write something that might endure like that. 

The book I read again and again 

I keep coming back to Gentlemen of the West by Agnes Owens. It is an interwoven tale about a young labourer and a gang of down-and-outs who frequent a local pub in 1980s Glasgow. It is an overlooked Scottish classic and I often reread it because it manages to be incredibly rich and incredibly simple at the same time. It’s a funny, bleak, gimlet-eyed look at working-class men and one of the sharpest portrayals of Glasgow I’ve ever read. 

The book that changed the way I think about the world  

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson asked me to reconsider the interior lives of people of faith. The compassionate portrait of the godly, Reverend Ames showed him to be a man made of flesh, with the same jealousies, regrets, and desires as the rest of us. Perhaps the world would be better if we focussed more on our shared humanity rather than our differences.

The book that changed the way I think about the novel  

I like books that contain a whole life, portraits that feel richer than any painting. I often think of The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and marvel at the emotional impact achieved through great restraint. It’s a brilliant character study and I like how quiet and mannered the novel is, and how – after an accumulation of missed chances and disappointments – there’s nothing especially dramatic about it and yet it is so deeply affecting. 

The book I’m reading right now  

I’m finally reading The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and I’m loving it. It’s masterful, old-fashioned storytelling. No detail escapes Atwood’s formidable eye. 

Where I most like to read 

My favourite time to read is very early in the morning. I lie on my couch with a cup of coffee, while my husband sprawls at the far end and he reads his own book. Reading while daylight creeps into the room is the calmest way to start the day. 

Where and when I most like to write, and the tools I need  

I live in New York and I write at my kitchen table so I need a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. I find the silence helps, but I also wear them a little too tight because the gripping hugs my head and helps me to focus. 

The Booker-nominated book everyone should read 

I love From Scenes Like These by Gordon M. Williams. It was a finalist for the inaugural Booker Prize and a bit of a forgotten classic. Set in a small town on the west coast of Scotland, it tells of the coming of age of a young farmhand and the brutal, often violent, men that he works beside. It’s a compelling look at the creep of new towns on old agrarian communities and just how confused and conflicted masculinity was in Post-war Britain.