On the streets of Manhattan, the morning crowds are being drenched by a freezing rain sweeping off the Hudson river, but six storeys up, Peter Carey's home office feels like a sanctuary. The walls are lined with bookshelves and on the desk a laptop is raised on a stand, braced to receive its punishment from the notoriously hard-typing novelist who burns through at least one keyboard a year.
After ushering me in, Carey folds his tall frame into an office chair that swivels and rocks, accommodating his restlessness. Perhaps it is this energy that makes him seem much younger than his 76 years.
