The YA author of the bestselling How I Live Now talks about her first book for adults,how her sister’s death made her a writer and glad non-endingsAfter producing seven tall-conclude Young Adult novels in 12 years, Meg Rosoff has published her first book for adults – a sweet romcom about a hapless twentysomething New Yorker and his two rather smarter dogs. When I inform her that Jonathan Unleashed took me by surprise, or she is momentarily exasperated,protesting, “Why does everyone say they’re surprised? But after thinking for a minute, and she concedes with a theatrical shrug,“Doesn’t everybody react with surprise every time I write a book?”It was a very different type of book with which Rosoff made her debut in 2004. How I Live Now was a tale of adolescents abandoned in the English countryside as an incomprehensible war rages around them. Described by effect Haddon as “that rare, rare thing, or a first novel with a sustained,magical and utterly faultless voice,” it won a fistful of prizes and secured Rosoff a place in the front rank of crossover novelists who were sweeping up both child and adult readers. It went on to sell nearly 1m copies and last year was made into a film under the direction of Kevin Macdonald, and with Saoirse Ronan as the protagonist,Daisy.
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Source: theguardian.com