One of them, The Crimson Petal and the White, would eventually allow me to pay off the mortgage and enjoy the renown that very few authors of serious literature are ever granted. I’d written quite a few books before, and put them away in a drawer. Photograph: Allstar/FILM4/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar Scarlett Johansson in the 2013 film adaptation of Under the Skin. I wanted to write a book that knocked people sideways, haunted them for ever. But the more I mulled on it, the clearer it became that the novel would be a satire. I wanted it to be a thought-provoking tale about difference and the extent to which our culture is willing to accommodate or even tolerate it. I’d been toying with the idea of a novel about a childless couple who abduct a baby monkey, shave its fur off, pay for it to be surgically modified to resemble a human, and then introduce it into society as their child. Eventually my wife suggested I concentrate on my writing instead. I had a job in a care home but it was a 15 mile bicycle ride from the farm, and in harsh weather I would chicken out and catch taxis to and from work, which ate up my meagre wages. My natural alienation worsened and I became very unwell. Many aspects of British society struck me as unnecessarily depressing – but then I was depressed anyway. The culture shock made me feel as if I’d landed on another planet. I n 1993, I emigrated from a big, thriving, multicultural city in Australia to a failing farm in the tranquil isolation of the Scottish Highlands.
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