Biography
Born in London in October 1938, Anne Perry was plagued with health problems as a young child. So severe were her illnesses that at age eight she was sent to the Bahamas to live with family friends in the hopes that the warmer climate would improve her health. She returned to her family as a young teenager, but sickness and frequent moves had interrupted her formal education to the extent that she was finally forced to leave school altogether. With the encouragement of her supportive parents, she was able to "fill in the gaps" with voracious reading, and her lack of formal schooling has never held her back.
Although Perry held down many jobs – working at various times as a retail clerk, stewardess, limousine dispatcher, and insurance underwriter -- the only thing she ever seriously wanted to do in life was to write. (In her '20s, she started putting together the first draft of Tathea, a fantasy that would not see print until 1999.) At the suggestion of her stepfather, she began writing mysteries set in Victorian London; and in 1979, one of her manuscripts was accepted for publication. The book was The Cater Street Hangman, an ingenious crime novel that introduced a clever, extremely untidy police inspector named Thomas Pitt. In this way an intriguing mystery series was born ... along with a successful writing career.
In addition to the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt novels, Perry crafts darker, more layered Victorian mysteries around the character of London police detective William Monk, whose memory has been impaired by a coach accident. (Monk debuted in 1990's The Face of a Stranger.) She also writes historical novels set during the First World War (No Graves as Yet, Shoulder the Sky, etc.) and holiday-themed mysteries (A Christmas Journey, A Christmas Secret, etc), and her short stories have been included in several anthologies.
Good to Know
Some fun and fascinating outtakes from our interview with Anne Perry:
The first time I made any money telling a story I was four and a half years old -- golden hair, blue eyes, a pink smocked dress, and neat little socks and shoes. I walked home from school (it was safe then) with my lunchtime sixpence unspent. A large boy, perhaps 12 or 13, stopped me. He was carrying a stick and threatened to hit me if I didn't give him my sixpence. I told him a long, sad story about how poor we were -- no food at home, not even enough money for shoes! He gave me his half crown – five times sixpence! It's appalling! I didn't think of it as lying, just escaping with my sixpence. How on earth he could have believed me I have no idea. Perhaps that is the knack of a good story -- let your imagination go wild, pile on the emotions -- believe it yourself, evidence to the contrary be damned. I am not really proud of that particular example!
I used to live next door to people who had a tame dove. They had rescued it when it broke its wing. The wing healed, but it never learned to fly again. I used to walk a mile or so around the village with the dove. Its little legs were only an inch or two long, so it got tired, then it would ride on my head. Naturally I talked to it. It was a very nice bird. I got some funny looks. Strangers even asked me if I knew there was a bird on my head! Who the heck did they think I was talking to? Of course I knew there was a bird on my head. I'm not stupid -- just a writer, and entitled to be a little different. I'm also English, so that gives me a second excuse!
On the other hand I'm not totally scatty. I like maths, and I used to love quadratic equations. One of the most exciting things that happened to me was when someone explained non-Euclidean geometry to me, and I suddenly saw the infinite possibilities in lateral thinking! How could I have been so blind before?
Here are some things I like – and one thing I don't:
I love wild places, beech trees, bluebell woods, light on water -- whether the light is sunlight, moonlight, or lamplight; and whether the water is ocean, rain, snow, river, mist, or even a puddle.
I love the setting sun in autumn over the cornstooks.
I love to eat raspberries, pink grapefruit, crusty bread dipped in olive oil.
I love gardens where you seem to walk from "room to room," with rambling roses and vines climbing into the trees and sudden vistas when you turn corners.
I love white swans and the wild geese flying overhead.
I dislike rigidity, prejudice, ill-temper, and perhaps above all, self-righteousness.
I love laughter, mercy, courage, hope. I think that probably makes me pretty much like most people. But that isn't bad.Feature Interview
In the fall of 2007, Anne Perry took time out to talk with us about some of her favorite books, authors, and interests. What was the book that most influenced your life or your career as a writer – and why?
The Collected poems of G. K. Chesterton -- because it would be the book I would take with me if I could have only one! His passion for life, his optimism, love for and belief in mankind gives me heart, courage, and hope. If I am happy, it makes me even happier; if I am down, it gives me steel to fight and a faith to win. His art with words, the music he creates is superb. I could run with examples and end up reciting the whole book, but "The Ballad of the White Horse" -- all 100 pages of it -- will have to do for a start.
What are your ten favorite books, and what makes them special to you?
My ten favorite books is much harder. It varies from year to year.
There would have to be two or three poetry books: G. K. Chesterton, Rupert Brooke, and some of A. E. Housman for a start.
Dorothy L Sayers' translation of Dante -- I'll settle for the Inferno, because it is a very good read, and it captures the essence of wisdom in understanding that we are punished not for our sins, but by them. What we make of ourselves outweighs what anyone else, human or divine, can do to us -- not excluding the grace of God to redeem.
I would include Thomas Costain's The Magnificent Century -- about England in the 1200s. It is very vividly written and tells of one of the most fascinating periods in English history, one too often ignored. The pages leap with life and characters.
I have very recently read a fascinating book called The Secret History of the World by Jonathan Black, which has to be included. I am giving several copies away for Christmas presents. There are so many people I think will find their minds set alight by the ideas in it. It is a history of the evolution of the human consciousness. I have read it twice, and will read it many times more. Nothing has ever made me think harder, or re-aligned my ideas so clearly.
For something lighter I would choose To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willism -- time travel, adventure, laughter, romance, essential English eccentricity at its best (as is sometimes done superbly by those who are not actually English) -- and a happy ending.
And a couple of mysteries: Pretty much anything by Jonathan Kellerman or Michael Connelly -- for their dark reality and intense compassion for broken human beings. And they never lose their own humanity.
Collected works of Oscar Wilde. That can hardly need explaining. What greater fire or wit ever existed? What are some of your favourite films, and what makes them unforgettable to you?
Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War -- to make me think and care and cry all over again. And it has just about every great British actor of the day in it.
Casablanca -- probably for the same reasons as everybody else. It's a perfectly honed gem -- every line, every shot counts -- and the acting is superb.
There was an old film of The Tales of Hoffmann with Moira Shearer and Robert Helpman. The music and the visual beauty of that could be watched again and again, like many other marvelous works.
Murder by Decree -- a Jack the Ripper solution starring Christopher Plummer as Sherlock Holmes and James Mason as Watson. It is one of the most terrifying and riveting films I have seen -- with some profound philosophy at the end -- and supremely well acted.
Any Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire -- with lovely costumes and evergreen music, maybe some Irving Berlin -- or "Let's Face the Music and Dance." What types of music do you like? Is there any particular kind you like listening to when you're writing?
Classical, especially Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms. And Italian opera of the romantic period (not the earlier baroque) -- Puccini, Verdi, Boito, Bellini, etc. I am very particular about artists where opera is concerned and will buy several renditions to get the one I like best. Yes, I do sometimes play it when I m writing; then there are times I am so absorbed I hear nothing -- see nothing, etc.
What are your favorite kinds of books to give – and get – as gifts?
My favorite books to give or receive are those which make me think. Laughter is good, beauty is good, but a new idea is priceless.
Do you have any special writing rituals? For example, what do you have on your desk when you're writing?
Writing rituals? Only one: Get on with it! Start writing something; if it's rubbish, you can always go back and rewrite it. I don't use a desk. I sit in an armchair with my feet up and write with a pen on a pad of paper. A good pen helps a lot -- preferably a box of them.
Many writers are hardly "overnight success" stories. How long did it take for you to get where you are today? Any rejection-slip horror stories or inspirational anecdotes?
I think I may have taken longer than many people to get to the point I'm at now. It took me nearly two decades to write a book that was accepted and published. It was my first mystery. I had enough rejection slips for non-mystery historical stories to paper the walls!
What tips or advice do you have for writers still looking to be discovered?
I would say keep working and accept the necessary re-writing, but above all – get a good agent, then listen to what they say – but don't abandon your own beliefs. A dishonest ‘voice' will not be heard for long.
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