The Humans

A note, and some acknowledgements

I first had the idea of writing this story in 2000, when I was in the grips of panic disorder. Back then, human life felt as strange for me as it does for the unnamed narrator. I was living in a state of intense but irrational fear that meant I couldn’t even go to a shop on my own – or anywhere – without suffering a panic attack. The only thing I could do to gain a degree of calm was read. It was a breakdown, of sorts, though as R.D. Laing (and later Jerry Maguire) famously said, breakdown is very often breakthrough and, weirdly, I don’t regret that personal hell now.

I got better. Reading helped. Writing helped also. This is why I became a writer. I discovered that words and stories provided maps of sorts, ways of finding your way back to yourself. I truly believe in the power of fiction to save lives and minds, for this reason. But it has taken me a lot of books to get to this one, the story I first wanted to tell. The one that attempted a look at the weird and often frightening beauty of being human.

So, why the delay? I suppose I needed a bit of distance from the person I had been, because even though the subject matter is far from autobiographical, it felt too personal, maybe because I knew the dark well from where the idea – jokes and all – first came from.

The writing proved a joy. I imagined writing it for myself in 2000, or someone in a similar state. I was trying to offer a map, but also to cheer that someone up. Maybe because the idea had been fermenting so long the words were all there, and the story came in a torrent.

Not that it didn’t need editing. Indeed, never has a story I have written needed an editor more, so I am very grateful to have one as wise as Francis Bickmore at Canongate. Among other things he told me that a board meeting in outer space might not be the best way to start, and crucially got me to think of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and bleed the weirdness in gradually. It was wonderful, though, to have an editor telling me to put stuff back in just as often as he was saying leave things out.

Thanks also to the other important early eyes on this. They include my agent Caradoc King, along with Louise Lamont and Elinor Cooper at AP Watt/United Agents, my US editor Millicent Bennet at Simon and Schuster, Kate Cassaday at Harper Collins Canada and film producer Tanya Seghatchian, for whom I’m now writing the screenplay. Tanya is just about the best person anyone could have on their side, and I feel particular loyalty to her as she has supported and assisted my work since my very first novel, and a meeting in a coffee shop nearly a decade ago.

I must thank all my lucky stars for having the support of Jamie Byng and Canongate, who are the most passionate publishers a writer could ask for. And of course Andrea – first reader, first critic, continual editor and best friend – and Lucas and Pearl, for adding wonder to my daily existence.

Thank you, humans.