The Late P.D. James, Writing Within the Conventions of a Classical Detective story and Regarded as a Serious Novelist
"For me the library is at the heart of any institution of learning, and particularly a university. Here we have assembled the wisdom of the past, the achievements of the present and our aspirations for the future." Dame P.D. James, at the inauguration of extension to Portsmouth University library, England, 2007
Frequently Asked Questions for P.D. James from the Random House publishing site
I knew from very early childhood that I wanted to be a novelist but for a number of reasons I did not begin writing my first novel, Cover Her Face, until I was in my late thirties. It was accepted by the first publisher to whom it was sent and was published in 1962.
I began with a detective story because:
- I very much enjoyed reading them in my adolescence
- I thought that I might be able to write one successfully in which case, as a popular genre, it would stand a good chance of acceptance by a publisher
- I am fascinated by construction in a novel and the detective story has to be well-constructed
- I did not wish to use the more traumatic events of my own life in an autobiographical first novel and saw the writing of a detective story as a valuable apprenticeship.
After I had progressed in my craft I came to believe that it is possible to write within the conventions of a classical detective story and still be regarded as a serious novelist and say something true about men and women and the society in which they live.
3. What is the difference between the detective story and the crime novel?
I see the detective story as a subspecies of the crime novel. The crime novel can include a remarkable variety of works from the cosy certainties of Agatha Christie, through Anthony Trollope and Graham Greene, to the great Russians. The detective story may be considered more limited in scope and potential. The reader can expect to find a central mysterious death, a closed circle of suspects each with credible motive, means and opportunity for the crime, a detective, either amateur or professional, who comes in like an avenging deity to solve it, and a solution at the end of the book which the reader should be able to arrive at by logical deduction from clues presented by the writer with deceptive cunning but essential fairness. What interests me is the extraordinary variety of talents which this so-called formula is able to accommodate.
4. How do you get your first idea?
Usually my creative imagination is sparked off by the setting rather than by the method of murder or by any of the characters. I have a strong reaction to place and may visit a lonely stretch of coast, a sinister old house or a community of people and feel strongly that I wish to set a novel there. For example, The Black Tower began with a visit to the Purbeck coast of Dorset and A Taste for Death
5. What other writers have influenced you?
I can detect in my work the influence of four very different writers: Jane Austen, Dorothy L. Sayers, Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh.
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