Anne Theroux: ‘I want to have my say’

Her marriage to the prolific author Paul Theroux fell apart in 1990. He has written about the divorce, now she tells her side of the story

In 1996 the author Paul Theroux wrote a short story about the final evening of a marriage, where the characters talk poetically and drink champagne. The reality", writes Anne Theroux today, was different."

I arrive at the cafe early, but Theroux had arrived earlier still. She greets me from the far side of a wisteria- strung patio, elegant in the shade. We are meeting to discuss her memoir, based on a diary she kept in 1990, the year her marriage was collapsing, and over the course of our conversation we stumble only once, but in quite an unexpected place. I'm not a writer," she says, her voice suddenly a little ragged. But, you are, I insist - you have written a book. I would never describe myself as a writer just because I've written one book." Why? I suppose I think Paul would be quite cross if I claimed to be a writer." I will claim it for her then, only partly out of political spite.