A biography for Fiona Bartonhasn’t been written yet.
“I chose to write from different perspectives despite its complexity because it is what I have always done as a journalist.”
“Mental health is something that I'm very interested in.”
“Barbecue is to North Carolina as the hot dog is to New York.”
“I can't think whether I've actually interviewed the widow of a crime suspect. Obviously, I've interviewed members of the families of people who've been accused of things.”
“When you are a journalist, you are always looking for the next story. It might come from a phone call from a contact or an unanswered question you spot in someone else's article.”
“When you start writing fiction, you have to learn to invent, and it's very hard at the beginning to stop relying on facts and what you've heard.”
“As a journalist, I've been a professional watcher, picking up the body language and verbal tics that make us individuals and interesting to others.”
“The unsaid is a powerful tool. It invites the reader into the narrative, filling in gaps, interpreting silences and half-finished sentences, and seeing the hidden fear in someone's eye.”
“The imagination is such as powerful tool: suggestion is all you need. People fill in gaps.”
“It is a sad truth that apprenticeships fell out of favour in Britain in the Seventies and Eighties, when the manufacturing industries shed jobs and the construction industry went into decline.”
“It was this fascination with hidden lives, I suspect, that led me to journalism; seeking to uncover the truth about people became a job.”
“I know I love a novel with an unreliable narrator, and I think many readers do as well.”
“For most of us, our protective lies or omissions are so insignificant that being found out would be only mildly embarrassing. But for some of us, our secret may threaten to destroy everything. And that is food and drink to a novelist.”
“For me, there has always been the irresistible lure of a secret.”
“The success of 'The Widow' meant there were expectations for the second book from the first word, and it has created a completely different writing experience. Not to say I haven't enjoyed writing 'The Child,' but I confess there were times when I felt as if I was wrenching it out of my body with bloodied fingernails!”
“We may like to pretend otherwise, but we all have thoughts we don't want anyone else to know, things we've done that would change the way people feel about us, or parts of our lives that we would rather forget.”