1 This title to be published Friday 27 July is certain to create enormous interest. This is part two of my interview with author Joanne Drayton. The first part was published on Monday am and can be read here is you missed it.
J Just to recap - Teenage schoolgirls Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker were convicted of murder in 1954 in a case that caused a sensation in New Zealand and around the world.
After spending five and a half years in prison Juliet Hulme left New Zealand changed her name and disappeared never to be heard of again.
Then in 1994 all was changed with the release of Peter Jackson's movie, Heavenly Creatures. With interest in the movie rekindled a journalist managed to track down Juliet Hulme who was living under the name of Anne Perry and who had become an international best-selling author.
J Just to recap - Teenage schoolgirls Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker were convicted of murder in 1954 in a case that caused a sensation in New Zealand and around the world.
After spending five and a half years in prison Juliet Hulme left New Zealand changed her name and disappeared never to be heard of again.
Then in 1994 all was changed with the release of Peter Jackson's movie, Heavenly Creatures. With interest in the movie rekindled a journalist managed to track down Juliet Hulme who was living under the name of Anne Perry and who had become an international best-selling author.
Bookman Beattie:
After
Anne’s cover was blown you make several references to Robert McCrum’s article
in The Guardian on 29 June 1996. McCrum, a highly rated journalist and former
literary editor of The Observer is known to many in the book trade as back in
the 1980’s he the publisher at Faber & Faber. Could you say something about
that article and its importance?
Joanne Drayton:
As much as a newspaper article can be seminal, I think Robert McCrum’s was because it was the first time, in any real sense the two parts of Anne’s life had come together in one piece of writing as a whole story, be it somewhat fractured. McCrum was a clever choice because he had too much credibility as a journalist, literary editor and publisher to be tempted to write ‘true crime’ at a time when the story was fresh and probably begging, to some extent, to be treated that way. McCrum instead brought intelligence and eloquence to it. He did his research, he captured important interviews, like the one with Anne’s mother, Marion Perry (who would die at aged 92 years, in 2004), and he communicated Anne’s story critically and reflectively. He was frank to the point of being brutal at times and she was raw and still navigating her life in the wake of the revelation of her identity – and all of this is there. The article was an important point of reference for me.
BB:
As much as a newspaper article can be seminal, I think Robert McCrum’s was because it was the first time, in any real sense the two parts of Anne’s life had come together in one piece of writing as a whole story, be it somewhat fractured. McCrum was a clever choice because he had too much credibility as a journalist, literary editor and publisher to be tempted to write ‘true crime’ at a time when the story was fresh and probably begging, to some extent, to be treated that way. McCrum instead brought intelligence and eloquence to it. He did his research, he captured important interviews, like the one with Anne’s mother, Marion Perry (who would die at aged 92 years, in 2004), and he communicated Anne’s story critically and reflectively. He was frank to the point of being brutal at times and she was raw and still navigating her life in the wake of the revelation of her identity – and all of this is there. The article was an important point of reference for me.
BB:
Joanne Drayton:
Personally I would like to talk
to Hilary Nathan – yes, of course – but probably not professionally. And I
don’t think it would have changed anything particularly in the book. It might have
given me some more immediate and direct information about her adult life (which
has been reasonably well documented anyway) – but that’s all. I spoke to her
friends in Christchurch, to people who knew her and her family and to people in
the Catholic Church who gave her counsel, community and their prays.
As a writer, I think it is important to keep in mind what it is you’re doing. My book is not the biography of a murder, or of a teenage relationship – it is a literary biography of Anne Perry. Although the Parker-Hulme case had huge and on-going ramifications for both girls (and others), the time that their lives overlapped was remarkably short, especially when put in the context of their whole lives. I felt there wasn’t much to be gained from talking directly to Hilary Nathan, and I totally respect her wish to be left alone. She has chosen an eremitic life of prayer and cloistered seclusion from the world. It is her right to make that choice and I think she should be left to get on with it.
As a writer, I think it is important to keep in mind what it is you’re doing. My book is not the biography of a murder, or of a teenage relationship – it is a literary biography of Anne Perry. Although the Parker-Hulme case had huge and on-going ramifications for both girls (and others), the time that their lives overlapped was remarkably short, especially when put in the context of their whole lives. I felt there wasn’t much to be gained from talking directly to Hilary Nathan, and I totally respect her wish to be left alone. She has chosen an eremitic life of prayer and cloistered seclusion from the world. It is her right to make that choice and I think she should be left to get on with it.
BB:
Meantime through the late 1990’s and into the 21st century Anne Perry’s publishing career really took off, her royalty earnings became significant and she became a highly rated author on both sides of the Atlantic for both her crime fiction and her historical fiction. Can you suggest three or four especially significant events in her professional life during these recent years?
Joanne Drayton:
The latter part of the 1990’s and
opening decade of the 21st century were a richly productive time for
Anne. It was during this period that she experienced the fruition of things
laid down earlier. She now had two successful crime detective fiction series up
and running with a million-dollar contract from Ballantine for the publication
of books ahead. The espionage plots that Don Maass had encouraged were being
executed with flourish and conviction, and in 1998, The Cater Street Hangman was made into a film for television by
Prince Edward’s Ardent film company. In 2000 she won her Edgar award for a
short story called Heroes set in the
trenches in Ypres, and started the WWI quintet that would greatly diversify and
challenge her writing. She was regularly making the New York Times best-seller lists, and in
April 2009, travelled to Washington to collect a Lifetime Achievement Award in
honour of her contribution to crime fiction writing.
BB:
I admire the way you have integrated the early sensational years of Anne’s life through the book at appropriate stages so that it become a total biography rather than just a relooking at that one life-changing event in her life. Are you happy with the balance you have struck?
BB:
I admire the way you have integrated the early sensational years of Anne’s life through the book at appropriate stages so that it become a total biography rather than just a relooking at that one life-changing event in her life. Are you happy with the balance you have struck?
Joanne Drayton:
Thanks very much, and – Yes – I
am happy with the balance I’ve struck. I wanted readers to meet Anne Perry, the
adult – up front – and for that meeting not to be hijacked by the sensational
aspects of her childhood. I also wanted to create a dialogue between the child
and the adult life. Once I settled on the structure, which I mulled over for
about six months, then that conversation began. As I wrote it, it took on of a life
of its own that surprised me sometimes. The juxtapositions between the lives,
the events and the books were often poignant and revealing. It almost wrote
itself in places – which is for me when writing is at its most rewarding.
People talk about the zone, when everything finds its natural pattern and balance,
and in writing perhaps – it’s voice – for me this happened here.
BB:
Of course you make the point that but for a recent law change in New Zealand the two girls may well have been hung for their crime?
BB:
Of course you make the point that but for a recent law change in New Zealand the two girls may well have been hung for their crime?
Joanne Drayton:
The death penalty has a
fascinating history in New Zealand and abroad, and I am inclined to see its
presence in statutes as an indicator of a society’s evolution. While Juliet
Hulme was in prison (1954-59), five men were hung at Mt Eden. The Labour Party, which became the government in 1935, was against the
death penalty. The Crimes Amendment Act, passed in 1941, changed the penalty
for murder from death by execution to a life sentence with hard labour. A
change of government in 1949 heralded a more conservative era. Almost as soon
as the National Party assumed power, it reintroduced capital punishment for
murder. Juliet and Pauline were saved from the gallows by a recent law change.
This was Section 5 of the Capital Punishment Act 1950, which stated that “where
a person convicted of an offence punishable with death was under 18 the
sentence passed should be a sentence of detention during Her Majesty’s pleasure
instead of a sentence of death”. Their case was the first time section 5 had been applied.
BB:
You make the point that Anne explains herself in her writing. In concluding our interview about The Search for Anne Perry could you say something about this?
BB:
You make the point that Anne explains herself in her writing. In concluding our interview about The Search for Anne Perry could you say something about this?
Joanne Drayton:
Yes – while I said in the first
part of this interview that I read Anne Perry’s books for the pleasure and for
their own merits as thoughtful and engaging pop-cult-lit rather than a game of
‘spot the personal revelation’ – Anne does explain herself in her books – and
they are a huge help in understanding her and her life. To quote from my book:
“Anne Perry explains herself in her writing, in the stories of flawed
protagonists who fail the world and themselves but can transcend their past to
find forgiveness. They battle their history, the corrupting influences of the
world and their own fallibility and self-doubt. It is a familiar literary
conceit that, for Anne, has become a default position. Its suspense and
resolution are perfectly suited to crime fiction. She writes prodigiously, and
with imagination and penetrating intelligence. And until the world finally
‘gets it’, and she can forgive herself, it is a story she will tell over and
over again.”
I’m not entirely sure I
will ever find anyone as fascinating as Anne Perry to write about again. I say
this every time I finish a book, but perhaps this time I’m right. It’s a desperate
enough thought to drive even a ‘died in the wool’ biographer to fiction.
The Search for Anne Perry
Joanne Drayton
Harper Collins - $44.99
Publication - Friday 27 July, 2012
Footnote:
The Search for Anne Perry
Joanne Drayton
Harper Collins - $44.99
Publication - Friday 27 July, 2012
Footnote:
Since leaving New Zealand more than 50-years ago, Anne Perry has not spoken
to directly to New Zealand media. However, in a landmark move, Anne agreed to do two
exclusive interviews with New Zealand media
around the publication of her biography, The Search for Anne Perry.
Earlier this month journalist Guyon Espiner flew to London to interview Anne Perry and Joanne Drayton. His interview will air on TV3's 60 Minutes on Sunday 29 July.
Listener journalist Diana
Wichtel also conducted interviews with Anne Perry and Joanne Drayton. Her story will run in the New Zealand Listener issue dated 4 August, that will go on sale
on Saturday 28 July.
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