Haddon, a soft-spoken Englishman, was born in Northampton, "the jewel of the Midlands," he says dismissively. "I always joke that there are only two literary links to Northampton, and both of them are to the same psychiatric hospital." Apparently John Clare, the English Romantic poet, ended up in St. Crispins Hospital, and so did Robert Lowell, the modern American poet, after suffering a manic episode when he was passing through. "That's the end of Northampton's link to world literature," Haddon says with a laugh.