The Infinities' is a shortish book but densely loaded with Nabokovian slyness, gorgeous imagery, and disturbing insights into what it means to be mortal.

For novelists, sharply drawn moral conflicts are often useful, and even human and personal disasters can be seen as material.

DeLillo has said that he no longer feels a compulsion to write long, compendious books. In his later years, Saul Bellow said something similar. DeLillo, of course, has written very long in the past, notably with the 850-page Underworld (1997), and his story has been America.

If I had been brought up in America, I think I would still have had the same sort of job as a writer.

My family had no money or social connections with the music industry but I came to London and had some success that continues to influence my life.

The whole process of being one of the 10 finalists for the 'Vogue' Fashion Fund award has to be my biggest achievement to date. Meeting Anna Wintour, Diane von Furstenberg, etc., has been an amazing experience that even now gives me goose bumps when I think about it.

I was really fearful that I was going to lose my record deal. It's really scary as a female to not have that success early on in your career, 'cause you don't know how many chances you are going to get.

I'm not opposed to success.