"The seed of this novella was a single image I'd long had in mind before composition. A young boy standing in a farmyard no longer knowing which hand he led with. That struck me as a promising metaphor for something my conscious mind had yet to catch up with, and indeed it was another few years before I finally figured it all out. By this time I'd returned to my early love of the classic dark novella. Lovecraft, obviously, but also a renewed appreciation...