INTERVIEW: Crime Author Anne Perry Converses With Fellow Author Ian Rankin

INTERVIEW: Crime author Anne Perry converses with fellow author Ian Rankin. o/usa/node/81

Ian Rankin: [...]extreme situations or changes in their lives.

Anne Perry: Yes. Moral choices and also I think very seldom does any tragedy occur where only one person is to blame. Usually a lot of circumstances have combined. It's very much an idea in my mind that it's not just one person but we all contribute to things that happen for better or worse. We are responsible for our own contribution.

IR: And in your personal life you have had to deal with a ..., of course.

AP: Yes, I have.

IR: Can you tell us a little bit about that?

AP: Yes. When I was 13, I became quite seriously ill. When I was 15, I committed a crime as an accessory; I was involved.

IR: What was this specific crime?

AP: I helped someone kill another person.

IR: Which person?

AP: Their mother.

IR: This was a friend of yours?

AP: Yes.

[OFF] In 1954, Juliet Hulme, a school girl living in New Zealand, helped to batter her friend's mother to death. She was found guilty of murder, but was only 15 years old, too young for the death penalty. Instead, she was sent to prison. After serving their sentences, both girls left the country, changed their names, and disappeared. In 1994, the case was fictionalized in the film Heavenly Creatures.

IR: Was the mother awake, asleep... ?

AP: Oh, she was awake!

IR: You jumped on her, or something?

AP: Yes.

IR: And that all happened very quickly.

AP: It was within a space of... My parents were separating. My father had lost his job. We were about to leave the country. I felt I had not time to find a better solution. She told me that if I left, she would take her own life and I believed her.

[OFF] At the trial, the jury heard evidence that the girls had carried out a sustained and brutal attack on Pauline Parker's mother.

IR: It must have been an extraordinary sensation at such a young age to be going through that process of judgement, I guess, by society.

AP: Yes.

IR: ... going through the trial process and everything else.

AP: Yes. And when you were that age, you were not allowed to speak.

IR: In court, you mean?

AP: Yes. So you cannot say anything about what you did or why you did it.

IR: So you are not allowed to, for mitigating circumstances, you are not allowed to get your say out of it.

AP: No, not at all.

IR: How did you feel when you were in prison? Did you get any perception at that time of how society was thinking about you?

AP: Yes. To some extent, regarded as a complete monster.

IR: That must have been very upsetting...

AP: It is.

IR: ... also especially as you are going through that process of coming to terms with with it.

AP: Yes. It is very difficult. But then I was in what is I believe regarded as the toughest prison in the southern hemisphere. And, yes, it is a helpful process to feel that you are paying for what you have done. I also had a lot of people who were kind to me.

IR: How long did you actually spend in prison?

AP: Five and a half years.

IR: Five and a half years! Did that seem to you a long time, did it seemed too long, or...?

AP: It was at the time endless because I had no idea how long it was going to be. Hum, no I don't think it was too long. Had it been a lot longer it might have broken my ability to rebuild myself.

IR: I wondered: at what point does redemption come do you think, I mean at some point during incarceration?

AP: That is a very spiritual question, to which I can only give you my own estimate of the answer. The redemption comes when you no longer wish to be that kind of person. When you understand that... when you see it as ugly, and you understand why it is not what you want to be. Not what you should be, not what you want to be. And that's the difference. Not because somebody outside is telling you: this is not what you do. But because you, yourself, say: this is not who I want to be.

IR: How do you feel about the fact that society requires people to be locked up, especially at such a young age, that we require what seems to be not redemption so much as a kind of vengeance.

AP: I suppose society does require a certain level of vengeance. It need to be not only done but seen to be done because it is supposed to be enough to prevent other people wanting to do the same. I think it would have been the worst thing that could ever have happened to me in my life if somehow they had said: "Well, look. You know, you were under medical treatment. These are mind altering drugs. I am sure you are not really wicked. You go ahead and forget about it." I think that would have been totally destructive to me.

IR: How important was the punishment to you?

AP: I think it’s vital. I think until you feel that you have settled the debt, you cannot move on. It is a bit like trying to walk with an open parachute open behind you. By paying, you cut the strings and then you can move on. You can allow yourself to move on. I can say it and look you in the eye, because I can say: Yes, I have dealt with it. I believe that I have paid. I believe that I have been forgiven where it matters. And it now for me no longer exists. I can move on and be the best person I am capable of being. But I think that is true of everybody. As long as you don't say: "somehow it wasn't really me, it was that person and somehow it didn't matter and I don't need to pay."

IR: Do you find a certain irony in that you now make a living as a crime writer, having had your background?

AP: You know I never thought about it until other people... Because, really I want to write a novel and a crime is a good peg to hang it on. I suppose pulling a rabbit out a hat at the end and being able to say to people: "Yes, you thought it was so and so, but it wasn't." is not that easy. "You thought this person was bad, but actually what they did was for good reason. You thought this person was good but actually it wasn't." It is the sense of drama and being about to pull out something to say: "There you are. It is not as easy as you thought is it?"