Ho hum Switzerland – a giant deposit box for dodgey billionaires? A smug prison of "stiff, null, propriety" (DH Lawrence) or playground and bolt hole for scribblers? Beginning with the Romantics – Byron (on a diet), Shelley (almost drowning) and Mary Shelley (babysitting and writing Frankenstein) the author tots them up. Our own James Joyce began Ulysses here; he and Nora "consummated their love" in Zurich. John le Carré was recruited here, Ian Fleming found the scenery and political intrigue the perfect inspirations. Conan Doyle was here, as was Hemingway, Herman Hesse, Thomas Mann, Nabokov and Patricia Highsmith ("jaded, butch, Scotch-soaked lady novelist") died here. Padraig Rooney has lived in Switzerland for 15 years and manages a balancing act between folksy myths that have shielded the Swiss from the reality of neutrality (and housing billions) and the intrepid scribblers who, within "the prison", found shelter, inspiration, and, for Robert Louis Stevenson, tobogganing.
