Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Five Minutes, Five Questions
Novelist Anne Perry
Google Anne Perry. You’ll find she’s best known for her historical detective fiction series set in Victorian England: the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novels, which include “Dorchester Terrace” and “Midnight at Marble Arch,” and for her William Monk novels featuring “A Sunless Sea” and “Blind Justice.”
She is also the author of a series of five World War I novels, 14 holiday novels and a historical novel, “The Sheen on the Silk,” set in the Ottoman Empire. The Times selected her as one of the 20th Century’s “100 Masters of Crime,” and in 2015 she was awarded the Premio de Honor Aragón Negro.
You’ll find she was born in Blackheath, London, England, in October 1938 and at the age of 6 was taken “severely ill, so much so that the doctor told my mother he would be back in the morning to sign my death certificate.” She recovered but was ill throughout much of her youth, missing years of school.
“So that may be of some encouragement to those who had missed much formal education,” she says in a biography on her webpage. “In many areas it is possible to catch up, even to do well, especially if you have parents who encourage you, which I certainly did have.”
Perry is also a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was profiled in a 1984 LDS publication as “on fire” with her faith.
“As she leads her readers step by step to the solution of each crime, Anne exposes pretense and hypocrisy, ‘layer by layer, like the peels of an onion,’ she says. Through her books, she speaks out against the wrongs she perceives, against poverty, against the abuse and abandonment of women and children and other social problems,” the profile reported.
“’I write to share what I believe,’ she says. ‘I deplore violence. The violence in my books takes place off stage.’ But, although the reader never views the violence directly, she hopes ‘they are left with a sense of horror of it. To write about ugly things and make them seem right and commonplace is ultimately a betrayal.’
Perry answered five questions for What’s Up! before her Tuesday visit to the Fayetteville Public Library.
Q. What did you think you wanted to be when you grew up?
A. The only thing I ever remember wanting to be was a teller of stories, I don’t think I narrowed down the form: narrating, acting, writing, etc.
Q. How did your illnesses as a child decide your path for you?
A. Illnesses mean you have to live in your mind, because you can’t do a whole lot in your body. And if you are well enough, you get a lot of time to read, or if too ill to read, if you are lucky, read to a lot. My mother was also gifted at making up and telling stories. But I always had a lot of imagination. I think that is what I would have chosen anyway.
Q. What’s the first book you remember making an impression on you as a child?
A. The first book making an impression was “Alice in Wonderland,” and then “Through the Looking Glass.” I loved the imagination, the imagery, the logic and absurdities, always so reasonable in their own way, the poems, the animals, in fact all of it, in both books.
Q. Do your characters ever argue with you about what’s happening in a book?
A. No, my characters don’t argue with me, but sometimes I realize I have not made the most of them, or I have made then do something out of character, unreasonable, or without a motive that makes sense. I suppose that is something similar.
Q. Are there other characters in your head that may become new series of books?
A. Yes, there are definitely characters in my head that could become new series! That is one of the
main charms of doing the Christmas novellas. You can give a minor character a leading role and develop them, see if they work. Good question; can’t remember ever being asked that before.