How did your Irish mother, a nun turned teacher, and English father, a second World War pilot turned headmaster, inspire your love of storytelling?
My great-grandfather, Tom Moran, was a seanchaí, so storytelling may be in the blood. Also, my dad seemed to have lived through most of history.
What is the appeal of historical fiction and has it changed?
True stories are always powerful – and weirder than fiction. I love the chance to stand with Nero as Rome burns, to see it through his eyes. Historical fiction is still the best stories of us, retold.
Have you considered tackling an Irish subject?
One day, perhaps. Conn of the Hundred Battles springs to mind.
You wrote a book a year for 15 years until aged 28. The Gates Of Rome, the first in what would become the Emperor series about Julius Caesar, sparked a bidding war. Why is the classical world so compelling?
They bathed – and loved, killed, betrayed and aspired to be great. We can recognise ourselves in their values.
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What drew you next to Mongol warlord Genghis Khan for your Conqueror series?
Genghis to Kublai Khan is the greatest rags-to-riches story in human history.
Tell me about Nero, the first of a Roman trilogy which charts the career and scheming of his mother Agrippina. It’s your first book told from a female perspective?
Every great man has a woman behind him rolling her eyes. To understand Nero, you have to know his mother: sister to one emperor, wife to a second, mother to a third.
History is often written by the victors. How important is it to you to correct the record?
I try to see historical events without judgment. The insights can be startling. Beyond that, I don’t have an agenda. I just tell stories.
Can the truth get in the way of a good story, or vice versa?
A storyteller might make an oak tree higher, or a gentle river rage and flood. Yet the stakes of historical fiction are already life and death.
How important is research? And imagination?
Research is vital. I need the reader to see the scene, to be there with me.
What inspired your huge bestseller The Dangerous Book for Boys, co-written with your brother Hal?
Old-fashioned books like Boy’s Own.
Your original publisher wanted to gut it of danger?
They did, yes. It would have been a mistake.
You are toying with a 19th-century murder, that involves many famous names. Tell me more.
Not at the moment. I’m staying with Rome for a while, I think.
You co-signed a letter to the Guardian in 2014 appealing to Scots to reject independence. Post-Brexit, do you regret it?
Some unions are good, some bad. The trick is knowing which is which.
Which projects are you working on?
I’m working on a Roman slave-to-senator, Count of Monte Cristo-type story.
Have you ever made a literary pilgrimage?
Yes, to the graves of Keats and Shelley in Rome.
What is the best writing advice you have heard?
Plan – and revise. By fluke, I discovered one more valuable thing: read aloud. It’s the only way to find errors.
Whom do you admire the most?
Shakespeare.
You are supreme ruler for a day. Which law do you pass or abolish?
“From this moment, any new law must be at the expense of two others already on the books.”
Which current book, film and podcast would you recommend?
Not a fan of podcasts. I enjoyed Dune and its sequel. Giles Kristian’s Arthur trilogy is superb.
Which public event affected you most?
The death of Queen Elizabeth. It felt like a thread severed, one that joined my father to me, and to my sons and daughters. He passed a decade ago, you see. She seemed almost eternal until she was suddenly gone. One by one, the voices of each generation fall still.
The most remarkable place you have visited?
I have hung upside down to kiss the Blarney stone, ridden horses in Mongolia and sailed into Auckland high on a yard arm of a three-masted brig. Writing has taken me to some strange and wonderful places.
Your most treasured possession?
I bought a blank book in Amalfi 30 years ago. In that, I have handwritten every poem I love. Otherwise, I have the watch I bought camping in France when I was 18, my black Swiss army knife and my silver Yard-O-Led pen.
What is the most beautiful book that you own?
Probably The Dangerous Book for Boys for everything it means to me. Not a cop-out! It really is a beautiful thing.
Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?
I’d fill the room with poets: Keats and Yeats and Shakespeare and a dozen more.
The best and worst things about where you live?
I like the open green spaces, but I can hear the M25 motorway.
What is your favourite quotation?
“Excellence does not require perfection.”
Who is your favourite fictional character?
Dickon from The Secret Garden. I modelled myself on that kid for years of my childhood. Or Hornblower. Or Adrian Mole. Honestly, if I start this, I’ll go on all day.
A book to make me laugh?
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome. Funniest ever written.
A book that might move me to tears?
Flowers for Algernon – the original short novella. Wonderful.
Nero is published by Michael Joseph
