The Literary Mirror

Was there ever a version of this novel closer to a roman à clef?

An early draft, yes, with details that were a little too identifiable. My agent and I both agreed it made the book smaller — about one office rather than about authorship generally — so I sanded those details down.

Meenal discovers how much of her value depended on anonymity. Was that always the emotional centre?

It became the centre once I started interviewing actual speechwriters for research and heard the same thing from nearly all of them: the job only works if nobody notices you're doing it. That's a strange thing to build a career on, and I wanted the novel to sit with that strangeness.

The romantic subplot has drawn some criticism. How do you see it now?

In hindsight I'd cut it or rebuild it from scratch. It came from a note I took too literally at the time. I don't think it ruins the book, but I don't think it earns its space either.