Salley Vickers

Salley Vickers' books include Miss Garnet’s Angel (2000), Mr Golightly’s Holiday (2003), Dancing Backwards (2009) and Where Three Roads Meet (2007).

From her Q & A with Anna Metcalfe for the Financial Times:

What book changed your life?

Probably Modern Man in Search of a Soul by Carl Jung, which I read before I was 11. It made me want to become a Jungian analyst.

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Who are your literary influences?

Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Penelope Fitzgerald, Ivan Turgenev, George Eliot.

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What book do you wish you’d written?

The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald. She’s my hero. Her spare style is compelling and her humour is scintillating but never cruel. I’m a great believer in the late start and she was a late starter too.

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What novel would you give a child to introduce them to literature?

I’d give a teenager The Catcher in the Rye. I’ve given it to many disaffected young people and it has often worked.

Read the complete Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue