I’ve been lucky enough to travel widely. When you’re based in Europe, it’s very easy to go to Madrid or Budapest for the weekend. I also lived in Italy for ten years and now live in Ireland. – Laurie Graham
I love working fictional characters into a piece of history. It plays to my strengths, which are characterization and dialogue, and assists me in my admitted weakness, plot. – Laurie Graham
I’m married to an American, and although we live in Europe, I think of myself as an honorary American. – Laurie Graham
As well as writing novels and doing short-order journalism, I am also the full-time carer of my husband, who has Alzheimer’s. Each day feels like a race that must be run. – Laurie Graham
My early novels were very understated and English. Fourteen years ago, I met and married my American husband, and as I learned more about his background and culture, I became interested in using American voices. – Laurie Graham
I speak pretty fluent American, though I do so with a strong British accent, and I love America: The scale and the variety of it are astonishing to someone not born there, and I’m convinced that its energy and generosity have somehow rubbed off on me and affected my writing. For the better. – Laurie Graham
Even professional, paid carers aren’t always models of saintly behaviour – and they know they can knock off at the end of their shift to go home, take an uninterrupted shower, and have a normal conversation with someone. – Laurie Graham
Personally, my interest in social history ends around 1959, by which time I was an adolescent. I’ve always attributed this to my particular sensibilities. I like formality and elegance, and I’m fundamentally conservative. – Laurie Graham
I almost always use first person voice in my novels. It has its limitations, but it gives a sense of immediacy that’s hard to create with an anonymous, all-seeing narrator. – Laurie Graham
Times may have changed, but there are some things that are always with us – loneliness is one of them. – Laurie Graham
None of us wants to be reminded that dementia is random, relentless, and frighteningly common. – Laurie Graham
My preferred style is to write in first person, so I always have to play around with possible narrator voices until I find something that works. – Laurie Graham
The thing about praising beauty is that good looks are an unforgiving task- master, a Forth Bridge of a maintenance job. The passing years present their accounts. Younger models become available. – Laurie Graham
I have a magpie mind, by which I mean I see and hear little things – photos, fragments of conversation – and store them away for future use. – Laurie Graham
Childhood doesn’t have to be perfect, and children don’t have to be beautiful. From a bit of grit may grow a pearl, and if pearl production doesn’t materialise, the outcome will still be preferable to the shallowness of vanity. – Laurie Graham
The word ‘carer’ makes me think of someone with a nylon overall and a long list of ‘clients’ to wash before she finishes her shift. A companion was something unique. A kind of live-in friend. – Laurie Graham
My research process doesn’t vary much. I do a little reading to establish a timeline and decide how I’m going to approach the story. – Laurie Graham
Characters develop as the book progresses, but any that start to bore me end up in the wastepaper basket. In real life, we may have to put up with tedious people, but not in novels. – Laurie Graham
Sundown is often the worst time of day for people with dementia. They can become restless and difficult. – Laurie Graham
My parents never told me I was beautiful, and for one very good reason. I wasn’t. When your child is a tubby, bespectacled little oddity, as I was, it’s important not to give them false expectations. – Laurie Graham
I’ve never minded solitude. For a writer, it’s a natural condition. But caring for a dementia sufferer leads to a peculiar kind of loneliness. – Laurie Graham
I’m thankful my parents obliged me to live with the unvarnished truth: I might not have been a looker, but I was a better speller than the prettiest girl in my class, and I was funnier, too. – Laurie Graham
Not so very long ago, certainly well into the Thirties, a lady companion was a normal feature of life for widows or lone spinsters. – Laurie Graham
