Biography

Former Vice-Regal Consort of Canada (1999-2005).

[on his novel 'Dark Diversions'] Novels last because they aren't true. [So] if you are going to write about the rich-out-of-control in the late 20th century, this is the way to do it. This is a novel without a hint of moral redemption in it. You are supposed to read this book laughing so hard you don't realize you are slitting your throat. Black comedy is a great tool of the writer. Come back to it if you want to say something really awful.

I was talking to a dictator the other day and it was so boring. Dictators don't have anything to say.

I'm one of those novelists who have had a way of wandering in and out of something. It's a way of living your life.

It's a very delicate time for Canada. Canada is this very unusual project and we have to be able to understand and describe ourselves to other people and ourselves. We are a country based on complexity and multiple overlapping ideas of ourselves. Canadians like complexity and they like being complicated. And we are most successful when we have fun with ourselves.