This is the story behind the novel.

In 1991, shortly after the paperback publication of A Private Place, I was signed up by Hamish Hamilton (an imprint of Penguin), to write my third novel, A Vicious Circle. The idea for it had been gestating for three years, ever since I read Balzac's 'Lost Illusions' while working on a national newspaper. I had been astonished by how resonant its description of Lucien's rise and fall in the corrupt world of journalism still was.

The other big influences on the novel are Dickens's Bleak House and Trollope's The Way We Live Now. The early 1990s were a time of deep recession in the UK, when the greed and wealth of Mrs. Thatcher's Britain collapsed. Even so, I was fascinated by the way poor people had simply disappeared from the consciousness and the conscience of the middle classes, especially in fiction. There were many parallels with our world and that of the Victorian era. Even our cars moved no faster than the carriage which carried Becky Sharp and Amelia from Hackney in 'Vanity Fair' - and instead of coal pollution, we had carbon monoxide. I wanted to examine Mrs. Thatcher's infamous dictum that "there's no such thing as society", and show how we are all linked, just as the characters in 'Bleak House' are. I also wanted to revive the stock characters of the Victorian novel - the good doctor, the spoilt young woman, the beggar, the rise and fall of ambition. They seemed to me to be interesting archetypes, still recognisable in the world of modern London.

Originally, Amelia was conceived of as a villainess, as an inversion of the Amelia in 'Vanity Fair', with Mary as a gentler Becky Sharp. However, as a result of what I underwent when having my own two children, Amelia changed considerably. I had never read a description of what it really feels like to be pregnant, nor the moral changes that take place on giving birth. My own entry into reviewing, unlike that of Mary Quinn happened at the same time, largely because my morning sickness made me unable to move. But I had, like Adam, some experience of being on the receiving end of criticism.

It took me almost four years to write, and for that period I earned so little that the tax man actually paid me back. I didn't go out to book launches, and still largely avoid them. Perhaps this explains why it never occurred to me that my new novel would excite any particular interest on publication.

Greatly to my surprise, however, the original proofs did receive a libel threat from a former boyfriend, now Literary Editor of the Evening Standard, and Penguin decided to cancel publication. It took the libel expert, David Hooper of Biddle & Co (whom I then employed after contacting the Society of Authors) very little time to suggest a way to avoid any resemblance to a character that, as my editor at Penguin had said, "nobody but a lunatic would want to claim as himself."

The ensuing publicity, though scarcely what I wanted for a serious satirical novel, ensured that several other publishers became interested in buying the novel. The auction, conducted by my agent Giles Gordon, was won by 4th Estate, who published the novel in December 1996.

A Vicious Circle is published as Spitze Federn in Germany by List Verlag. It is currently being developed by Sharon Maguire, director of the film of Bridget Jones's Diary.