\n Lynley Dodd\u2019s Hairy\u00a0Maclary from Donaldson\u2019s Dairy \u2013 where an assortment of differently shaped dogs go on a walk \u2013 wormed its way into my subconscious when I\u00a0was very young. The great dane (Hercules Morse, as big as a horse), the dalmatian (Bottomley Potts, covered in spots), the dachshund (Schnitzel Von Krumm with a very low tum) \u2026 I could probably still recite most of it from memory.<\/p>\n
My favourite book\u00a0growing up<\/strong>
\n I had a lot of picture books illustrated by the\u00a0great Korky Paul, and remember being obsessed \u2013 even as quite a young child \u2013 with the intricate grotesquerie of it all. He\u2019s probably best known these days for illustrating the Winnie the Witch books, but my\u00a0favourite was The\u00a0Rascally Cake by Jeanne\u00a0Willis, in which a\u00a0rotund, green-haired man called Rufus Skumskins O\u2019Parsley makes a cake out of disgusting things (rotten eggs, spider legs, garden snails and so on), only for the cake to come to life and attempt to eat him<\/em>. Probably more than a little bit of Skumskins found its way into the protagonist of my second novel, The Glutton.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/f6893d46369c93e675041d86e83dd3c6d0a25280\/0_252_1600_1280\/master\/1600.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=84c1183e2dc4cdf484b154e83b3d4715\" "\\"AK")
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"