Few places on earth have been as affectionately alchemised into literature as the Lake District.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My recollection of a hundred lovely lakes has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful.
'Cemetery Lake' was an interesting book to write.
I lived for two years in Odawara, a castle town an hour outside of Tokyo, near the sea. It's a beautiful place, and I drew on my experiences there when writing 'The Lake of Dreams.'
In very general terms 'Top Of The Lake' is about good and evil. It's a deep dark mystery. It also deals with lots of fascinating human relationships, and it's also about the battle of the sexes.
No matter where I go - London, Beirut, Jerusalem, Washington, Beijing, or Bangalore - I'm always looking to rediscover that land of ten thousand lakes where politics actually worked to make people's lives better, not pull them apart.
One of my favorite places on the planet is a place in northern Michigan: Long Lake in Traverse City.
I use the setting of a small rural Norwegian community - the kind of place that I know so intimately. I could never write a novel set in a big city, because, frankly, I don't know what it would be like.
I grew up in Lake Orion, Mich. What was best about Lake Orion where, where we grew up was it was a suburb of Detroit but had a lot of open space around.
My favorite place to read is next to the pond in my backyard.
Lake Wobegon, the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve.