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Hello and welcome to The Spectators Book Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor

of The Spectator. This week I'm very pleased to be joined by the screenwriter and novelist Terry Hayes,

whose debut novel, I Am Pilgrim, became a global bestseller. Now he's taken his time to produce a

follow-up about 10 years, but here it is, and it's called The Year of the Locust. Welcome, Terry.

Well, thank you very much for having me. Well, before I start on that delicate 10-year gap,

I don't ask about the title, because obviously, you know, did you feel Nathaniel West

had kind of shortchanged us with the day of the locust? Oh, well, yes. Funnily enough, I know that book,

and I always did like the title, but it's a much longer book, so it certainly

couldn't be done in a day. So we went for the year of the locust, but primarily because one of

the characters has a very graphic tattoo of a locust on his back. And, you know, it has all those

biblical connotations and apocalyptic world and all of those things.

And, you know, the biggest thing in movie titles or book titles is you've got to try to make it memorable.

So I thought it was memorable.

I always loved the title of I Am Pilgrim, although I was under an enormous amount of pressure from the American publishers to change the title,

to change the name.

But it's an unusual thing.

I am Pilgrim, and they wanted to call it just Pilgrim.

And I thought, oh, well, you know, it sounds like we're all off to the haj or something.

And so I fought my corner.

And, of course, now everybody says, oh, it was a brilliant title.

And then come find anybody who thought it wasn't such a good idea.

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