Kate Atkinson writes some complex literary fiction. Her latest novel "Started Early, Took My Dog" derives it's title from a poem by Emily Dickinson. This is her 4th novel featuring private investigator (now retired) Jackson Brodie.
Each book is this series has been utterly different. In the previous one, "When Will There Be Good News?" Brodie spent much of the book in a coma after being involved in a train wreck. He barely existed in that one.
Her latest offering bears yet another convoluted plot. There are missing children here. Murdered prostitutes. An aging actress. An abused dog. And there's Jackson Brodie wandering about in Yorkshire visiting cathedrals and upon occasion, doing research to find out the family background of a woman who would appear to have materialized out of the thin air.
In this interview Kate Atkinson tells how she became a novelist and she provides a synopsis of her story line here. She also reveals why she rarely gives any interviews in the United Kingdom these days (the author lives in Edinburgh, Scotland).
