On a cold, 1970s north London morning, maverick psychiatrist Zack Busner wrestles his Austin out of Highgate and through East Finchley, he crosses the North Circular, passes Finchley Memorial Hospital and turns right onto Woodhouse Road, and he arrives for work at Friern Hospital, the vast Victorian mental asylum in Friern Barnet.

He is under both a professional and a marital cloud and he has every intention of avoiding controversy but, this being a Will Self novel, he, of course, does not.

He encounters Audrey Dearth, who fell victim to the encephalitis lethargica sleeping sickness epidemic at the end of World War One and has been in a coma ever since, and attempts to bring her back to life using a new and powerful drug.

Shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, Umbrella has been described as one of Will’s best novels and is certainly one of his most ambitious in terms of scale and scope, being set across an entire century and undertaking to make sense of the nature of the modern world by going back to its source, the industrial madness of the so-called Great War.

Will was born and brought up in East Finchley and Hampstead Garden Suburb and so knows Friern Barnet extremely well, and next week he returns to the area to read from and sign copies of the book at Friern Barnet Library, just along the way from the site of the old hospital, now Princess Park Manor apartments.

The inspiration for Umbrella came from a number of places.

“It came from being interested in these patients with encephalitis lethargica,“ says the author, journalist and TV personality. “I read Oliver Sacks’ Awakenings when it came out in the 1970s and wanted to feed that back into the local, north London area.

“I was very aware of Friern Hospital when I was growing up because our neighbour worked as a psychiatrist there, and the book also came from wanting to write about London at the turn of the 20th Century, when the hospital was called Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum.“ Audrey’s character emerges from Will’s own family history.

“Her family are my family, working-class Cockney from Fulham, and her two brothers are based on my own relatives.

“I went up to visit Friern the other day and cycled to Finchley Central, where I went to school.

“There’s a particular character to north London. I’m not a ‘village London’ person, I always think of it as a city, but it’s strange how distinctive that part of London is. It was like a little bit of time travel back to my childhood.“

  • Will Self will be at Friern Barnet Library, Friern Barnet Road, Friern Barnet on Wednesday, November 14 at 7pm. Details: 07592231150, fbpeopleslibrary.co.uk