I hope before I die I manage to write a romantic novel (because I never write any kind of romance) and I would love to be able to write a children's book, but I think they are the most challenging of all.Ĭhild: Is it easier to write the Brodie books than the others? Or harder?Ītkinson: I found the Brodie books easy to begin with, and then very difficult to finish. It's the same with different styles and genres of writing. To run with the house analogy - I love houses and there are so many lovely ones that I'll never have a chance to live in because life is short and so is money. Is that fun?Ītkinson: Yes! I get bored quite easily but also there are so many ways of writing out there to explore.

It's as if you've been in and out of several different rooms in the house. There is something seductive about the shape of a detective novel, or at any rate of using a detective in a novel, because it gives you a ready- made dynamic and a reason for introducing characters to whom interesting things happen as opposed to, say, starting with a whole load of people in a bank or an office and thinking so what are their stories, and what's going to happen to them? (Although, even as I'm writing that, I'm thinking oh, actually that sounds quite intriguing).Ĭhild: Your career so far shows you're not afraid to write whatever you choose. And then it became the 'power of three' and I thought 'one more' and then I found I had unfinished business for Jackson and it became four. Kate Atkinson: I never intended to write more than the first one - which was Case Histories - but I wrote it so quickly - which was highly unusual for me - that I somehow felt as if I hadn't finished with the form and the characters. It's starting to look suspiciously like a series! What brought you back this time? Lee Child: This is the fourth Jackson Brodie book. In this Amazon exclusive, we brought together authors Kate Atkinson and Lee Child and asked them to interview each other. Iâ?m looking forward to Glenn Miller and the Andrew Sisters-not Jacksonâ?s taste at all! -Kate AtkinsonĪuthor One-on-One: Kate Atkinson and Lee Child (Jacksonâ?s taste is strictly on the melancholic side.) At the moment Iâ?m writing a book that begins in 1910 and goes through the Second World War so just now Iâ?m listening to music from the Twenties and Thirties, rather odd and not entirely to my taste. There are a lot of songs about dead mothers and orphaned children for Case Histories and When Will There Be Good News, and more than a few about death and heaven in Started Early. Sometimes itâ?s apparent to me why Iâ?ve chosen certain tracks and at other times Iâ?m not at all sure of the reason.

He, and I, like country music but thatâ?s quite a broad church. I find itâ?s rather like a meditation, something I come back to on a regular basis when Iâ?m writing because in some mysterious way it reminds me of the essence of each particular book. I always make a compilation tape for Jackson for each book.

Kate atkinson started early