His first novel, Overtaken, has just been released in paperback.

It tells the story of property developer Kelvin, and is - to all extents and purposes - a revenge novel.

Read the review of the talk Sayle gave in Bristol

It also focuses on Kelvin's nemesis, Sidney Maxton-Brown, a self-employed haulier.

Maxton-Brown has no moral compass and, driven by a personal tragedy for which Maxton-Brown is responsible, Kelvin decides it is his responsibility to provide the small-time crook's moral education.

I caught up with the comedian-cum-author in Bristol to ask about his new career.

MG: Bristol crops up briefly in your new novel. How well do you know the city?

AS: I don't know it that well, really. Several people I know have been to the Old Vic drama school, so it seemed sort of apposite to use.

MG: I was wondering how much of the book was autobiographical. How much of you is there in Kelvin?

AS: I think that there are elements of my own experience scattered throughout the book, not just with Kelvin, but with other people.

You couldn't tell really which is me and which isn't, but there is a lot that's autobiographical.

MG: I know, for example, that you went to Chelsea Art School, and Kelvin drops out of a "famous central London art school" after about a year.

AS: I toyed with other places; business college, places like that, but yes, Kelvin's time at art school is based on my real experience.

The crucial difference between Kelvin and me is that he gave up, and I didn't.

Kelvin went back to Liverpool. One of the themes in the book is provincialism.

MG: And now you've hit a pretty major point in your career. How does it feel to have your first novel out?

AS: Well, I've had comedy-based books out before, but yes, this is my first 'proper' novel. Sometimes it feels quite good. Other times, well...

When it's your job, it's nice, but it's still just your job; there's a lot of attendant worries with it - how will it sell? - stuff like that.

I think being a great artist (put that in inverted commas if you like!) is always about dissatisfaction. I don't think there are any great artists who are satisfied with their work.

You can be happy about your life, and your general sense of who you are, but you will inevitably be dissatisfied in many ways with your work, because otherwise why would you improve it?

So, I think that's the best you can hope for. I'm very happy with who I am, but the work is hard.

MG: Overtaken seems to convey an exceptionally bleak world-view.

AS: I just think it's realistic. I don't think it's particularly negative. To some extent, what are you going to write about?

There are Barbara Pym novels, which are about people taking tea with curates, but even then, people are in extremis.

There's no point in writing about people just chugging along with their lives.

You write about crises, really.

MG: What would you say Overtaken is about, fundamentally?

AS: As Homer says at the end of one Simpsons episode: "Everybody's striving for a moral, but in the end it's just about some stuff that happened."

No, it does have themes, revenge, redemption, for example...

MG: Madness? To me, it describes a sort of descent into madness for Kelvin.

AS: In the end, Kelvin's become himself. His life from that point is going to be extremely difficult, but he is, nevertheless, himself.

It's about being yourself, about the impossibility of insulating yourself from bad things happening.

That's what most people do: they're trying to fend off the world. You can't do that. Dreadful things happen, one way or another.

There's plenty of disruptive ways you can cope with it: drugs, denial, patriotism, religion - those sorts of myths.

But the only way to truly be fully resolved as a person is to face it head on. To accept that life is truly difficult, that people aren't the mythological creatures that you make of them, but nevertheless to find some way to have a relationship.

I think that's what it's about, but I didn't know it was about this until I started talking to you!

MG: Many of the characters in your books are into designer gear and I remember seeing an interview in a design magazine with you in your very well-appointed flat.

AS: Voted "Twenty-Seventh Most Fashionable Apartment" by the readers of Living, Etc. magazine! I was thrilled.

MG: High acclaim! But are you living the capitalist role of enjoying all your designer luxury? Is that a rebellion against your Communist upbringing?

AS: It would be an affectation not to enjoy those things. I've always liked nice clothes, nice cars, good food.

I wouldn't pretend not to really, it would be hypocritical.

I don't think that they particularly matter, I think that they are consolations. I think you might as well have them.

When it becomes dangerous is when you become addicted to these personal possessions, and you start becoming a reactionary in order to hang onto them, you start thinking they're important.

If Gordon Brown comes to power tomorrow, and ushers in a socialist paradise, in which personal property is collectivised, I would give it all up without a thought. It's consoling to have these things, but they're not important.

MG: People compare you to Roald Dahl because of the way you often have a twist at the end of your stories. Do you know from the beginning what the twist is going to be?

AS: With Barcelona Plates, for example, it's got a classic twist, and that occurred to me halfway through writing it and then I had to go back and make changes.

No, I think it would be a bit mechanistic, to think of the ending and then work backwards.

MG: So you don't know where you're going to end up when you start?

AS: The interesting situation is what I always start with: a man on holiday alone in southern Spain, a minimalist architect who finds a piece of graffiti on his wall...

That's the core of it, really.

MG: Speaking of endings, you're one of the eight authors who have written the first half of a story for BBC Three's End of Story competition. Have you written the ending of your story?

AS: I'm sure I could think of endings, things that could happen, but no, I have no idea what the ending is.

MG: Are you involved in the judging?

AS: There's a judging panel that narrows it down to three stories per author, and then we each choose the winner for our own stories from those three.

MG: Some writers make a conscious decision not to read while they're writing. What about you?

AS: It can influence you. At one point I read Saul Bellow, an author I don't really like, but I found myself writing like him!

MG: Who do you like?

AS: Anne Tyler, Iris Murdoch... I think my greatest influence would be Evelyn Waugh. I'd like to say somebody more interesting, really.

Martin Amis is always complaining that I don't mention him!

Philip Roth, actually, I often fail to mention. I Married A Communist, and particularly The Human Stain which I think is a masterpiece.

MG: Joking aside, would you like to be compared to Martin Amis?

AS: Only in the sense that he's taken seriously as an author.

MG: Coming from a comedy background, it must be hard to be taken seriously.

AS: The pluses and the minuses cancel each other out. If I hadn't been so well-known before, we wouldn't be having this conversation. And how many people are coming to see me tonight just because of the book?

Generally it's an advantage. I've always been fascinated by what causes problems for authors, for comedians.

What seems to cause problems for Martin Amis and his father, say, is this striving after significance.

He seems to me quite "stuck" as an author, because he wants that Nobel prize or whatever... I mean, just write the thing!

You can see he's trying to create his own sense of greatness, rather than backing off and just writing.

MG: Your background in comedy balances the darkness with some light relief. Overtaken is very serious - all the hero's friends die in a car crash - and then suddenly you've got a scene where a stage director is fighting muggers off with his antique yo-yo!

Is it difficult to strike the right balance of seriousness and surrealism?

AS: It is, and I think sometimes if one took these things out that one would have a better shot at the Booker prize, or whatever, but that's the fun in it for me: to put the surreal stuff in.

I think you have to be careful about putting too many jokes in, because that's not what the stories are about.

They're a little treat for me.