I suppose in Japan in particular, there were all these impeccable women around me ‘doing’ domesticity to such a high standard, without fanfare or complaint, and all I could wonder about was what was going on in their heads. Suddenly the way that society related to me, people’s expectations about me and my feelings, my capabilities and opinions, changed overnight, and to me, it felt like landing in a parallel universe. When my kids were born, I did find it totally bizarre how my identity, any mother’s identity, was totally subsumed in the baby’s.
What drew you to the idea of exploring domesticity and the cultural pressures that specifically women tend to experience? I was also keen to write about Japan, the place I knew as home, the way I saw it, so I think Fault Lines was born out of all those ideas coming together. I’d only just recently gone through the mind-blowing identity crisis of becoming a mother, and all the questions that raised seemed particularly heightened in this old-fashioned society. I love it there, but I was really struck by how it’s still very traditional in terms of its societal expectations and gender norms. I’m half Japanese and grew up in Tokyo before coming to London, but living there as an adult was, of course, completely different to the Tokyo I’d experienced as a kid. I wrote Fault Lines after I moved back to London from living in Tokyo while my children were small. First of all, would you be able to tell us a little bit about how your debut novel came about and what your initial inspiration was?
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