I was a shy child. When everyone else was participating, playing, dancing, I was observing. I watched our American neighbour taste my mother’s curry for the first time and say she liked it, all the while frowning with her eyes and her mouth. I watched my father’s colleague slap him on the back, congratulate Dad for having published his research paper, but then say maybe next time it would be in a better publication.
The difference between what people did and said fascinated me. I tucked away in my memory bank what their bodies communicated and what their actions didn’t. People are complex and contradictory, and I couldn’t get enough of them. So when I started writing fiction in my 50s it wasn’t a surprise that I populated my stories with characters who were complex and contradictory. In each of my novels, protagonists, antagonists and the supporting cast are good,selfish.
