Publishers love to compartmentalize, and 'Second Chance' was not an easy novel to define.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The difficulty of writing a second novel is directly proportional to how successful the first novel was, it seems.
Like everyone else in this world, I have had struggles. There's disappointment and obstacles in everybody's life. I feel like I was writing 'Second Chance' not just for myself, but also for the people who have struggled.
Fiction gives us the second chances that life denies us.
My first novel was rejected by some of the most eminent publishers in the world. Starting again was a real wrench.
Fiction is about small ambition, small failed ambition, small disappointed hope.
My second, third and fourth novels were mistakes, essentially.
I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
The disappointing second novel is measured against the brilliant first novel - often no novel lives up to the first. Literary improvement seems like an unfair expectation.
In books, as in life, there are no second chances. On second thought: it's the next work, still to be written, that offers the second chance.
The business of second chances is everybody's business.