Profile: Tim Pears

Tim Pears's life has been so varied, and success has come so late, that it is difficult to know where to start the chronicle of his rise to fame.

But for someone who has made it bigger than most novelists can only dream, he is remarkably untouched and grateful.

He says his success is a result of luck and not, as I put it to him, because of his natural ability as a hugely talented writer.

He laughs: "There are so many novelists who are never published or who become lost in the huge morass of books published every year. I'm just lucky that I had a great editor. I could easily have become an embittered and boring drinker instead."

If you have read any of his books, you will know this is untrue. They are page-turningly compelling and immersed the readers in his characters right from the start. It is also no coincidence that the BBC is spending millions to bring 'In A Land of Plenty' to our screens in the autumn. The ten-part saga of three families in Middle England has a 6m budget.

But then Tim, 43, genuinely believes he is the luckiest man alive. He is doing a job he loves from his Walton Street home and taking afternoons off to share the childcare of his new baby, with his belly-dancer wife Hania.

His happiness is accentuated only by his fragmented upbringing. Not only was his childhood dysfunctional, but he tried almost 40 jobs before his first book was published.

Yet he doesn't think that being so worldly, articulate and literary is an achievement, considering he had no qualifications.

In many ways it is his life experiences that equip him so well to write. All his novels are related to family life and set against the social and political climate of the time.

Tim spent the first eight years of his life playing in the gritty urban streets of Crewe where his father was a priest.

His mother decided she wanted to move to the country and the family uprooted to Devon, where the dirty pavements were swapped for the streams and fields that provided a perfect setting for his first novel In The Place Of Fallen Leaves.

Typically, Tim was not traumatised or affected by this move. He enjoyed the change and adapted well until his mother ran off with a local farmer and left his father to raise him and his two sisters.

Tim admires his father for the effort he put into the unaccustomed task. He is sad that he disappointed his dad by drifting from job to job, never settling or fitting in, and desperately trying to find the right niche.

Even more sadly, Tim's father died before his only son's first book was published.

"He only ever saw me when I was a failure or a loser," Tim says, but one senses that it is something that still haunts him. With hindsight, Tim can see that his restless 20s were probably a result of depression.

"I was trying to find out what I wanted to do and where I fitted in society. I had to get a lot of things out of my system.

"But in a way it's lucky I wasn't good at any of the things I tried or I might not be here now," he says, looking contentedly around his loft where he writes every day.

He may be a pig wallowing in mud, but that is quite an unusual trait in many writers. Most of the authors I have met have to force themselves to be disciplined to sit down and write.

But Tim loves it. "I wish there were more hours. I will write for as many as possible," he grins. Admittedly, things have changed slightly since his son Gabriel was born. Tim wants to be as involved as possible in his first son's upbringing and the effect is evident in the time it now takes him to write a novel these days, a mere two years compared with the original eight. At present, he is writing his fourth. It is about capitalism, industry and family life seen through the eyes of a company executive.

To make sure he has grasped the topic, Tim always carries out detailed research before he embarks on each new story.

With A Revolution Of The Sun, which is hitting bookshop shelves now, his tale of a group of characters who congregate for a birth examines how the individuals find each other to form their own family of sorts.

But it also includes Tim's interest in the rise of pharmaceuticals and the continual exploitation of animals. "I think historians will view today's treatment of animals as we now regard slavery," he says.

"It is not only the animal experiments, but the genetic tampering, where we will soon be breeding certain pigs merely for human heart transplants.

"And there is no going back because there is too much money involved."

His intensity spreads to the many other issues that he introduces to his novels. But he hopes his opinions are not forced on the readers. He simply wants to give them the chance to form their own conclusions.

His interest in world affairs and international conflict spurred him to write a screenplay about Yugoslavia.

Before his father became a priest he was sent to the Nazi-occupied country to identify and support resistance fighters. The play is about his son who returns to the country and finds himself involved in the latest atrocities. And surprise, surprise though Tim has been there several times to check the political situation for himself, he swears the character is not autobiographical.

If his present success is anything to go by, his screenplay will be well received. Yet, despite a large pay cheque from the BBC in his pocket plus the proceeds of a highly successful career as a novelist, Tim still cannot quite relax.

He says: "I tell Hania to practise her belly-dancing because she might need to return full-time to teaching to keep the family going."

After being a loner for many years, he appreciates his family, whom he regards as a gift he never expected.

He declares: "I am the luckiest person I know. I am doing the thing I love most in the world and being paid for it. Life certainly becomes better as you get older."

"You find out who you are and your place in the world. One day, when you wake up and no longer have the same worries and neuroses, you know it's going to be OK."