HOWZAT

The stories all hinge on relationships, rather than themes. And they are suffused with a certain romance. At the same time, there always seems to be something not quite right, not just regrets, but a kind of madness. A man wrecks a flat to make it look as though a dog has done it, and an old crooner serenades his wife — hopelessly, in the event — from a gondola on the Grand Canal. Ish uses farce as a kind of higher realism. Farce, after all, is what often happens to us.

It even happens to “sorted” Ish. He was, when we met, in the middle of the high farce associated with films. Shooting of his novel Never Let Me Go was about to begin. “Alex Garland scripted it, and I get to be executive producer, which mainly means I have to worry — they tell me about crises day by day.”

Films have also got in the way of a project of his — a vampire novel, believe it or not. There’s a film-led teen vampire craze on at the moment, so he’s put it on hold until that subsides.

So there you have him: sorted Ish. Fourteen years ago, we discussed at great length his Japanese identity — or his lack of one. He came here with his parents when he was five. His father died two years ago, but his mother still lives in Guildford. To her, he talks bad Japanese. When he first became prominent, he at once became a token Japanese. He would be rung up by Channel 4 News and asked if he would talk about trade with Japan. Now things have changed.

“People are more sophisticated about these things. They’ve moved around and lived in places. I’m just another displaced person. The Japanese continue to claim me, in some ways more than they did before. They talk about me as though I am a Japanese writer.”

He is, of course, pretty thoroughly British, but it’s the displacement that matters. Losing Japan was a metaphor for all losses, not least his awareness of the 20th-century loss of a British culture that can write about itself, confident in the certainty that the world would want to know. Ish — sorted but displaced — must seek significance in subtler ways in the stable but surprisingly exotic location of Golders Green. And all that matters to us, his readers, is that he, triumphantly, found it.

Nocturnes is published on Thursday by Faber at £14.99

bryanappleyard.com

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• The 100 Best Books of the Decade
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• The conversation: James Ellroy