‘Washing your hair with bleach is not a rational response to nits. It was only as I grew up that I began to unpick the roots of my obsession with cleanliness.’

‘I woke up, still fully dressed. My pockets were completely empty. Then it hit me: holy shit. This isn’t my apartment. Six years of Marine Corps training awakened within me, and I began looking for weapons and an escape route.’

‘Come,’ issued a muffled voice. I opened the door. Cigar smoke. It was a wood-panelled office. An old man was seated behind a huge table supporting a sea of paper.
‘I’m Chris,’ I said.
He leaned back in his chair. ‘And I’m The Editor.’

‘I am eight years old and waiting outside a betting shop for my father. When he eventually steps out onto the street, he is a whirlwind of sweat and smoke. I know immediately that he’s lost all our money, the money that my mother has sent me to stop him gambling.’

‘In October 2009, I spent nearly twelve hours face down on an OR table, locked in a vice while my skull was sliced open. I had been diagnosed with a bleeding brain tumour. I learned to walk again, to swallow, to grasp objects; and I began to write.’