It's safe to say that British-born, New York-based novelist Patrick McGrath is dark in his concerns – safe because the description was applied to him by Hilary Mantel, who knows a thing or two about writing, and because the man himself agrees with every word of it.

Whenever Marcel Theroux felt depressed while studying international relations at Yale, he would imagine Dr Johnson visiting him "in Newhaven, Connecticut, us going out for pizza and him giving me wise 18th-century counsel".

Long afternoons.