Ladder of Years: A Novel

"What impact did it make? They’re on a beach holiday as a family. She ends up hitchhiking and setting up in a new town. I think what’s great is that she ends up reproducing the domestic frustrations of the life she had left behind, because she turns out to be somebody who is really helpful, and can’t stop being helpful. I think that’s true of a lot of pioneering stories: you have this idea that you’re going to leave everything behind and start afresh, but inevitably you end up reproducing the world you left behind, because there was a reason that was your world in the first place. Yes, you’ve got to run somewhere . And wherever that turns out to be will have its own qualities and difficulties. So even if you’re not trying to escape yourself, as soon as your destination stops being vague and turns into somewhere specific, it will involve dealing with the usual worries about money and work and whatever it is that drove you away in the first place. Yes, it’s not a miserable family. Her kids are not awful. It’s okay. And in fact the life she makes for herself in the new town is not a disaster either. But in the end she comes back to her old life, because at some point—when there’s so little to choose between them—she may as well stick with the version where she has roots and where people love her. It’s not a road trip novel, but if I could I would have included Thoreau’s Walden on the list, because it is a classic opting-out book. He spent two years in his cabin in the woods. Although one of the frustrations of Walden is that he never totally explains why he leaves at the end of it, and goes back to what he somewhat mockingly calls ‘civilised life’ again. Maybe he just got a little bored. He went there to get out of a rut. But there’s a danger that wherever you end up turns into another rut, and you will have to get moving again. I think it’s a great account of that desire to start again, even in a very minimalist way."