Rites of Passage

"The book is in the form of a journal, or series of letters written as a journal, in a book destined for the hero’s godfather. The hero is a callow young man called Edmund Talbot, on the edges of the aristocracy—his godfather is a Lord. He’s hoping for his godfather’s patronage. Out in Australia, he is supposed to become an assistant to the governor and therefore rise through the colonial government, and presumably ultimately return to Britain to take up a place in public life. The book begins with him starting this voyage in an unnamed vessel, which is very old and creaky, and only just holding together. Talbot is learning various things: what it’s like to be human, what it’s like to be humiliated, what it’s like to be a revolutionary, what it’s like to meet someone with different ideas to your own. We only read Edmund’s writing, except for one small patch written by someone else. But we learn by implication lots of things that he doesn’t know and doesn’t see. For that reason, it’s a very subtle piece of writing that you can appreciate in terms of its craft. “Writers are very prone to thinking, ‘Should I really be doing this? Is it rubbish?’” My father had a lot of fun writing this book. He said that was part of the reason why he then wrote two more books on the subject; he kept on thinking of silly things for Edmund to say. He’s just incredibly tactless. There’s a lingering attractiveness that I can’t quite put my finger on. You don’t want him to be absolutely destroyed, but to survive. So it’s about a young man, a callow young man, making his way in a small, enclosed society on a ship. I think it meant quite a lot. I mean, who would be indifferent to winning the Booker? But I don’t know what his feelings were. He just said in his journal that he was getting dressed and the taxi’s coming, you know? Then: “We have won the Booker.” I think it’s interesting he says ‘we’. He means my mother and him, because she was a great deal of help and encouragement. Writers are very prone to thinking, ‘Should I really be doing this? Is it rubbish?’ And she would say, ‘No, it’s not rubbish,’ or, on the other hand, sometimes, ‘this isn’t that good.’ To hear him say, ‘We have won the Booker’…. I think that’s really nice."