But let's leave those three characters to their chase for the moment and take a look at the influences on Niall Griffiths and his writing.

Like twin magnetic poles Griffiths' life swings between two powerful influences. The first is his birthplace of Liverpool and the second is his adopted homeland of Wales.

He was born in Toxteth in Liverpool in 1966. The scene of riots 15 years later in 1981, Toxteth was and still is a seriously run down inner city area. His father was a bricklayer and his mother's family has its roots in North Wales. His interest in words and writing began early. In a recent interview for The Western Mail Griffiths said 'Mine was not a bookish household, but it was one full of stories.' His grandparents often told him horror stories which he said 'were a preparation for the horrors of later life'.

Griffiths left school at the first opportunity and before long drinking and bad behaviour landed him in trouble. As a result he was sent on an outward-bound course in the mountains of North Wales. In his Western Mail interview he said of this experience, 'I thought the place was superb. I am not a great fan of heights and we were doing things like abseiling down the sides of mountains. But you'd get to the bottom and ... say to yourself, "My God, you can do this" '.

This time in Wales was a crucial influence on both his life and his writing. It gave him a spiritual home and this search for spirituality drives some of the characters in his novels. The mountains and moors of mid and North Wales can be bleak but for Griffiths, like others before him, that bleakness and even brutality has its own beauty and harmony. It may well be that on these mountains and moors Griffiths found some sense of order and meaning.

Having left school at 15 Griffiths decided to go back to college in Liverpool to take A-levels and then on to a college in Cambridge to study for a degree in English. He returned to Wales with the intention of doing a PhD in post-war British poetry at Aberystwyth but soon dropped the course and became what he called 'an enthusiastic participator in parties'. He would spend days and weeks high on drink and drugs. It was in the come-downs from these binges and rave parties that he wrote his first novel Grits.