‘I wrote myself a purpose. I wrote myself back into the world. To find this fantastic new freedom has been an amazing surprise, one of the great true surprises of my adult life.’
For The Atlantic’s By Heart slot, Harriet spoke to Joe Fassler about Larkin, the relationship between fear and fiction, and the power of ambiguity in art. You can find the piece here

‘You won’t find any bodies down alleyways in Her or Alys, Always. You won’t find any bodies, come to that. No police tape strung across doors, no screwed-up detectives drinking bad coffee, no alibis that come unstuck at the eleventh hour. Just people living apparently unremarkable lives: going to the office or the supermarket, having people over for supper, taking the kids to the swings.
The thrill for me has been discovering an undercurrent of unease beneath all this: the potential for catastrophe in the domestic, the commonplace, the everyday.’

Her is a Waterstones Book Club pick for spring. You can find Harriet’s piece for the Waterstones blog here