David Nicholls: ‘I didn’t have the confidence to show my work to anyone. That is a regret’

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Us, which was longlisted for the 2014 Booker Prize, tells the story of Douglas’s desperate battle to save his marriage to Connie during a “grand tour” of European cities with their disgruntled teenage son Albie. “There was already a David Nicholls actor and under Equity rules I had to find another name, so I took my mother’s maiden name, Holdaway,” he explains. I am a little calmer now.” Nicholls says his own life is nowhere near as “calamitous and fraught as Douglas’s” and laughs when I ask if he will ever pen his memoir? “No, it’s the one thing I know I will never write, because it would be incredibly dull and too boring to write,” Nicholls says.