The End of Mr Y was one of those novels we were all talking about in the office when it came out last year and so it’s great to see an in-depth interview the whip-smart author Scarlett Thomas over at Bookslut:

Aristotle says that fiction should do one of two things: reflect the world as it is, or make it better. While this is a little too cheerful for where I am at the moment, there’s a lot of truth in it nevertheless. People sometimes forget that real women, even ones covered in nappies and s**t and bleach etc., do not spend all their time thinking about dresses and princesses and kisses—it’s women in stories that do that. And these are stories that make things worse. So my stories seem different because they’re not like other stories, perhaps. I don’t know.

Somewhat undefinable, The End of Mr Y is a slightly smutty adventure story about cigarettes, coffee, malfunctioning 60’s architecture, Derrida, Baudrillard, quantum physics, rogue CIA agents, sex in toilets and sitting down to chat with a mouse god. Sounds fun doesn’t it?