In his latest novel, Moments of Pleasure, Julian Davies continues his exploration of father and son relationships, and of the role of desire in women’s lives. He talks here about his interest in contemporary manners, beginning by answering the question, why so much talk and so little pleasure?

There are a number of reasons. The book formed around Bea’s story where a woman falls in love with a man in her late twenties and maintains a relationship for sixty years even though he subsequently marries twice and comes and goes at his own whim. That was based on the story of a friend who is now dead.