I was fortunate enough to be able to go see Anne Perry when she was in St.
Louis on Thursday (25 March 2010) promoting her new book. It was pretty similar
to every other account I've read from others who have gone to see her. My
friend and I were the only ones under 50 and everyone there was obsessed with
her novels, eating up everything she said and applauding the most inane things.
The only interesting point in her discussion and the following Q&A was when an
audience member asked about the theme of redemption (mind you this was after
Anne Perry brought up the fact that she writes about redemption - it was more
of a follow-up question) and she seemed pretty pissed. She answered, "I think
all of us would like to believe that we can be better. There's no point in
being alive if we can't learn something and become better, and we really don't
deserve to be alive if we don't give other people that chance." Luckily I got
it on video (I didn't record most of the evening because it was mostly
narcissistic prattle) - you can view it here: http://www.vimeo.com/10468413
Besides being appalled that she seemed to give herself the authority to decide
who deserves to live and who deserves to die, I found it extremely interesting
in light of the fact that some people believe a motive for the murder (or at
least a contributing factor) was due to Pauline's wanting to improve or "become
better" by escaping her lower-class New Zealand origins through joining
Juliet's family, and saw Honora as the person preventing that. Then again, I
may be reading into things a bit.
She spent the majority of the time talking about the plot and characters in her
book and the research that was involved. I'm really not a fan of her books and
was completely terrified to ask about anything that might even have the
slightest hint about the past, so I managed to ask her about her writing
process. She rambled on for a bit about writing what you're passionate about,
making outlines for chapters, sticking to your writing schedule, and other
inconsequential things.
She signed a book for me and I got my picture with her, told her it was an
honor to meet her, and she seemed kind, though not very warm or friendly. I
could definitely see a bit of the "icy scorn" Pauline wrote about. :)
Anyway, I put up a few additional video clips if anyone is interested:
http://www.vimeo.com/user3460215/videos
Cheers!
