Jacques is putting the finishing touches on an autobiography he's writing for Philomel. The working title is A Divvil of a Lad--"that's what my grandmother used to call me," Jacques says.

"The first part tells about when I was a little kid in wartime, growing up in a Catholic working-class parish along the docks in Liverpool," he says. "I was laughing the other week while writing about Sister Mary Veronica. She was from Connemara, and carried a cane as big as herself. Here we were, five-year-old kids at St. John's School for the Totally Bewildered, and when she'd cane you she used to say"--here he softens his voice into a lilting brogue--"'You can thank your lucky stars I'm in a lenient mood, but woe betide you if you ever cross my path again!' Now I'd heard of low tide and high tide and flood tide, but I'd never heard of a woebetide. I figured it was a tide governed by Sister Mary Veronica's lucky stars."

Q: Mr. Jacques, the story of your life sounds very intriguing. Have you ever considered writing some sort of autobiography, or are there already parallels between your life and the characters/events in your novels (like Gonff, for instance)?

A: Penguin Putnam, my American publisher is planning a biography in the next year or so.