Lauren MacKenzie: My parents’ foray into swinging was an intimate and naive affair

Author Lauren MacKenzie reveals how her parents’ open marriage was the inspiration for her new novel, The Couples

Pic: iStock

The first book I remember reading by myself was a pretty, white leather bible given to me by a neighbour, Mrs Bevan, a church going Methodist, who thought my very modern, secular parents were letting me down. I was six. 

Mrs Bevan might have had a point though; my very modern parents provided me with the premise for my first novel, The Couples — what does it take to stay with the one person for a lifetime?