Mantel's Max

A minor memory, and a regret

A YEAR AGO, I had the pleasure of seeing Hilary Mantel speak.

The occasion was a discussion at Conway Hall organised by the London Review of Books – one of those literary/political talks familiar to anyone who goes to these sorts of things: imperfectly ordered and poorly wrangled, panellists roving wildly from subject to subject without alighting on anyt…