SOURCE: "A Mind to Write," in Armchair Detective, Vol. 19, No. 4, Fall, 1986, pp. 340-48.

[In the following interview, James discusses how her novels differ from those of the traditional detective genre, and the inspiration behind her characters and plots.]

"The extraordinary thing" is a phrase used often by British detective novelist P. D. James. There are many extraordinary things to be said about this vibrant woman whose ageless, wrinkle-free face and warm personality belie the fact that she has in her life faced great personal tragedy and in her writing has explored convincingly the psychological motivations for murder.

In her publicity photographs, James appears to be serious, pensive, perhaps even a touch reserved or severe. Many interviews in the past focus on the difficulty she faced when her husband, a doctor, returned from World War II to remain seriously mentally ill throughout the remainder of his life. Before meeting her, it is easy to picture a determined, perhaps rather silent woman, working away for years as a high-level British civil servant, efficiently balancing a demanding career in criminal law with bringing up two daughters, while earnestly tapping away on her typewriter in the early mornings, turning out detective novels hailed without exception by critics as masterpieces in the genre. But a face-to-face meeting with this woman obliterates this impression almost entirely, and certainly immediately.

I have met James several times over a period of five years, both in her London home and in various parts of the United States. Whether she was serving cucumber sandwiches and tea in London or cheering for Yale at a Harvard—Yale football game, James is a woman of great warmth and casual grace. She was born in Oxford, England, in 1920 and educated at Cambridge Girls High School. Her principal career was as a civil servant in administration at London's Home Office, work that was necessary to support her family. She has two daughters. In recent years, she has served as a magistrate in London and devotes the rest of her work time to writing and occasionally teaching. She resides in London in a Regency house that is bright and welcoming and well-ordered, much like her own personality.

In this interview, James tells us a bit about the child who always knew she would become a writer. She also tells us about her detective novels featuring Adam Dalgleish and Cordelia Gray, as well as her work that departs from the detective story format: her thriller, her play, and her nonfiction study of a series of nineteenth-century crimes, The Maul and The Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders 1811. Written in collaboration with T. A. Critchley, the British police historian, this latest volume is published by The Mysterious Press and Warner Books in its first American edition. It was first published in England in 1971.

[Herbert:] You have said that you knew from a very early age that you wanted to be a writer.

[James:] Yes, I think from an early age I was aware that I had what I suppose in common parlance is "a gift." I knew I had been granted a talent. I don't think I ever doubted that I could write. I mean, obviously, one does learn. One learns techniques. One develops—or hopes to develop. But I think I was aware that this was something I could do and the problem was going to be to make myself do it!

Do you have an image of yourself that would tell us what you were like as a girl?

Well, I think I had a very strong fantasy world from a very early age. I had numerous totally imaginary people who were very real to me to whom I talked and with whom I communicated. This was almost from early childhood. I told stories at a very early age; I used to tell them at night. We had one large nursery when we were very young, and I used to tell the stories at night to my sister and brother.

Were they mystery stories?

No, They were adventure stories.

Do you recall what you were like in terms of personality?

I seem to have been a curious mixture because I think I was popular and gregarious at school and yet at the same time very private.

That's an unusual balance to strike.

I think it is. My mother was a very warm woman, a very emotional sort of person, entirely different from my father, and I can see in myself the traits that I've taken from each. My father was very intelligent but I think rather cold emotionally. But he had a sense of humor and a tremendous independence, and as I got older I valued more and more these qualities in him. I had a very close relationship with him.

Did you always see yourself as writing in the detective area?

No. But, by the time I came to settle down to write the first book, there was no particular internal discussion about what sort of book it would be. I knew I was going to attempt a detective story for my first novel.

Did this arise out of a love of detective fiction?

Well, I certainly read it for pleasure. And Dorothy L. Sayers was certainly a very potent influence upon my youth. I love construction of course in novels, and I wanted to write a well-constructed novel. And I also thought that a detective novel would have the best chance of being accepted for publication!

Of course, I later discovered that within the detective form I could write a novel that has a moral ambiguity and psychological subtlety like a serious novel. Writing within the constraints isn't in fact inhibiting; it's positively liberating! This is why I carry on.

What do you think is the value of detective fiction for today's reader?

I wouldn't in a very difficult world underestimate the element of relaxation and escape. This is not in any way to be disparaged. I think detective novels do provide vicarious excitement, and they do help to purge irrational guilt and fears, I think. They do distance the terrors of death in rather a paradoxical way; they provide the reassurance that there can be a solution and that solution can be arrived at by human ingenuity and human intelligence and human courage.

Detective fiction usually centers around death. Do you see yourself as a person who has always been sensitive to the fragility of life?

Yes. I think this is so. I think I was born with this sense of the extraordinary fragility of life and that every moment is lived really not under the shadow of death but in the knowledge that this is how it is going to end. So that death is in a sense an ever-present thought. It sounds a little morbid, but I don't see it at all as morbid because I think I'm really rather a happy person who was always aware of this. I think for some people detective fiction does help to exorcise this fear. It distances death, really. It almost takes its horror, part of it anyway, and throws it out the window. The reader knows that order will be restored out of disorder.

The world of the murder story is a paradoxically safe world. This was particularly true of the old cozies. They still have their charm. Theirs was an ordered world with everyone moving according to hierarchy, with people knowing where they stand in the scheme of things and no one powerless, no one anonymous, everyone known, recognized, and valued.

Although your novels are far from cozy, they do show how very important individuals are to one another and the strong impact that people have on one another's lives.

Yes. The characters and their motivation are the most important part of the book to me. But I do think that it's important that the plot should stand out, that the clues should be fair. The clues should be presented with cunning but also with essential fairness.

I'm interested in the question of guilt in the detective novel. Obviously, the cozy sought to establish the fact of guilt, the answer to the question "Whodunit?" But the cozy didn't pursue and develop the effects of guilt on the criminal or on anyone connected with the criminal. In much detective fiction today, the psychology of guilt is better explored. In writing your novels, what kind of thought do you give to the question of guilt?

I think I give it quite a lot of thought. My new novel is about guilt. I think guilt is a fascinating subject altogether, because to be human is to be guilty, whether the guilt is rational or not. I think perhaps the difference between the cozy detective story and the modern detective story—which may also be called the crime novel—is that the latter does turn its attention to this question of guilt. And of course in the crime novel you may not have much detection, you may know who the guilty person is, and your novel really is about the effect of that deed on the person and on his society. This also bears on the thinking of W. H. Auden, who saw the detective story as a kind of morality play.

Yes, the dialectic of guilt.

And of course in the cozies we had the satisfaction, I suppose, of feeling that whatever else we may be guilty about, we're not guilty of having slipped the dagger under Sir Gaspar's ribs in the library! I am sure that the attitude of the writer to guilt distinguishes the true crime novel from mere entertainment.

I think one could also say that the crime novel at its best is concerned with the limits of free will, because in this kind of novel you really feel in the end, "Well, how much choice do these people have?" This is the fascinating thing, that you are trying to work to an extent within the old-fashioned conventions but at the same time you are trying to write a book which has some claims to be regarded as a novel because it is psychologically true.

In the detective novel that Auden was writing about, an idyllic society was shattered by an appalling crime—usually murder—but eventually complete order is restored. This doesn't seem to be possible—or indeed desirable—in a novel like Death of An Expert Witness.

Oh, yes. The days of getting everybody together in the library at the end are no more. You must have the solution to the mystery, but I think in the modern detective story, although we discover who did it and why and how and when and so forth, the effects of the crime are a great deal more disruptive than they were in the older mystery. It is not just a nice return to Eden. The modern detective story shows exactly how disruptive and contaminating murder can be and how no life in that society surrounding it is untouched by it.

What do you see as the chief difference between American and British detective fiction?

I think we're much more interested in the emotions that give rise to murder. It's malice domestic largely with us. I agree with Auden that the single body on the drawing-room floor is more horrifying and powerful than hundreds of bodies riddled with bullets down the mean streets. Strong emotion rather than strong action. That's basically the difference.

And yet you have never shied away from showing a graphic scene of death in fiction or in nonfiction.

Yes. Absolutely. But it is generally an individual death.

Your latest book, The Maul and the Pear Tree: The Ratcliffe Highway Murders 1811, is a work of nonfiction and a collaboration. It was published in 1971 after you had established yourself as a fiction writer. How did you and T. A. Critchley decide to write this story together?

We wrote it about sixteen years ago. I was then working in the Home Office, which as you know is the British equivalent of your Department of Justice, basically. Tom Critchley was my boss. We were both working in the police department.

I had been reading, I think in the London Library, the Newgate Calendar, which of course is a description of notorious and horrible crimes, and there was a chapter on the Ratcliffe Highway crimes, with a picture of poor John Williams's body being paraded around Wapping after he had presumably committed suicide. I read the account, and it seemed to me that there was a great deal of doubt about this whole crime. And so I mentioned this to Tom Critchley, and he said, "Did you realize that this was the crime which De Quincey wrote about in his famous essay 'Murder Considered as a Fine Art'?" "No, I didn't," I said. So I read that essay and said to him, "Well, it was an extraordinary account that De Quincey's written, but it seems to me that he's not got the facts right. There's a lot more behind this than one knows." So Critchley said, "Well, let's send for the Home Office files. Let's see what we can find out."

Then it became absolutely fascinating, and we decided that we would write up the case and make a book of it. It really was a very interesting book to write. I think as a bit of social history it is interesting, and it certainly shows what a murder investigation was like in London in 1811, and also what policing was like.

The case was notable in part because of the population's reaction to it. It involved brutal murders that were pinned on a man who committed suicide before he could be brought to justice.

Of course, what was so extraordinary is that the murders had such an effect on public opinion that when Williams was found dead of course they paraded his body around the streets. What an incredible thing that was to do as late as 1811. I don't know another case in which this happened. It's a certain indication of how appalled the populace were.

I think we have a feeling that the East End of London was such a violent place in 1811 and murders were happening all the time. But obviously they were not. They were not! There was a great deal, no doubt, of mob violence, a great deal of thieving and a great deal of criminal behavior of one kind or another. But atrocious murder of this kind was, really, rare. And one can see this in the effect the crime had on the populace.

The book indicates that the spectacle of the crowd parading the body of the alleged murderer around the streets was even discussed in Parliament.

Yes, even Sheridan, the playwright, made a marvelous speech.

I was interested to learn that it was felt that capital punishment was a deterrent to serious crime, and it was believed that the more people who could view a hanging the better. The example was supposed to be made public both to deter people from committing crimes and to serve as a public retribution. Therefore, if a criminal succeeded in committing suicide he was cheating the public of its revenge.

Oh, Yes. And of course suicide was regarded as a very great crime in itself. It was regarded as self-murder, and there were very strong theological objections to it in those days. So there were the two things: the man was a self-murderer, which made him wicked anyway, and he had cheated justice. He should have been publicly hanged to mark people's abhorrence.

This notion is very interesting in the light of just why the murder story—true or fictional—is so fascinating. Murder is of course the essential crime against society in the sense that the victim can no longer get retribution; so therefore society must do so for him.

Yes, absolutely. It's a crime for which you can never, ever make retribution to your victim. And with this particular crime people felt it was particularly abhorrent and dreadful because of the very nature of the victims. Here was poor Timothy Marr, a decent, hard-working little man with his wife and child, brutally done to death, not even safe in their own house. And over and over again there was the sense that there must be something absolutely rotten at the heart of the nation where such things could happen.

In studying this case, you learned about the poor state of forensic knowledge, the disorganized force of night watchmen who were the only law-enforcement people in the neighborhoods, the inefficient approach to investigation of a crime. What was it like to be a historical sleuth?

I found it was very interesting. It was surprising how much information we were able to get.

Did your own work in the police department give you any particular knowledge that helped you to investigate this historical crime that an average researcher might not have?

I don't think so, really. In the police department we weren't concerned with the investigation of crime. That's all done by the police themselves. We were really concerned with the administration of the police force. I think the fact that I'm a detective writer was very helpful, because I looked at the case from the point of view of the human side of the story. I looked at the personalities. I looked at the clues. I think I contributed mostly that and a lot of the more descriptive writing. Tom Critchley was probably the prime collector of information, the prime researcher.

I wondered if as a collaborator Mr. Critchley was a kindred spirit or if he had complementary differences.

I think complementary differences. He's much more a researcher and an academic writer. He writes very good prose indeed, and his book is the definitive history of the police in England and Wales. As a historian of the police he was very much at home with some of the problems of policing at that time.

Did you learn a lot about parts of London which you had previously rarely visited?

Yes. Yes. This part of London has changed almost more than any other part. The area was all dependent on what I think we called "that dark bloodstream of a river."

How did writing nonfiction seem similar to writing your novels?

It is a different kind of writing, but there are some things that are similar. I think it's terribly important in the detective story to create an atmosphere, tension, and mood. And of course, setting influences plot, and it even influences character. So the description of setting is vital in a novel, but it's also vital in a work like this.

I am interested to know why you decided to have the book reissued now and how it came about that The Mysterious Press is publishing it in conjunction with Warner?

I had felt up till now that it really was such an English story that it might not have much appeal to American readers. But Warner's asked for it, and as they are my paperback publishers I thought why not? It's been very well produced. And it's wonderful for my fellow writer to have a chance of publication in the States.

I understand that your next novel will be published by Knopf in the autumn. This represents a change of publishers.

Yes. Scribner's continues to have my backlist. The new novel is set in London and features Adam Dalgleish. It's called A Taste of Death. They're very, very enthusiastic at Knopf. I just feel hopeful that the book will repay their confidence in it!

How do you decide which detective, Cordelia or Adam, will appear in each book?

It depends on what sort of plot comes to mind—whether it's suitable for her or whether it's suitable for a professional detective.

Whether or not it's a suitable job for a woman!

(Laughs)

One might think that if you had a plot idea, any detective writer could use it and apply his detective to it; but actually there are more subtleties to it than that, are there not?

Yes. I suppose that there's something in what you say in that if you get a good idea for perhaps an original form of murder you could say, "Well that's the central idea of the book, this original way of disposing of someone, and the detective is of secondary importance." But when you have a detective who's an amateur and one who's professional there are certain crimes that an amateur is less likely to be called into.

That's true.

And with Cordelia's work it's nearly always a crime that the police haven't recognized as such, or a situation in which the police wouldn't normally be involved. In the first [book featuring Cordelia] the police thought it was a suicide and she was called in by the boy's father to find out why. And then in the second one, Cordelia was guarding this actress on the island. So Cordelia got involved in crimes in which it was logical for an amateur to be called in.

It did not matter in the old cozy days. Of course, with Peter Wimsey, he worked closely with the police. In fact, he used them just as his helots to do all the dull work! (She smiles.) But of course nowadays the readers are more sophisticated; they know that isn't so.

I think that in America the private eye has a bigger part to play. There are more of them and they're licensed and people probably use them more, for fairly serious crimes, but it doesn't happen here. I can't see private eyes getting much involved in murder here. So that's a constraint on it. There's immense scope for private eyes, but if you do have an obviously murdered body then the police are going to do the professional police work.

Have you ever considered using another sleuth besides Cordelia or Adam?

No, never.

Innocent Blood was a departure from the detective novels featuring Adam and Cordelia. How was the inspiration for it different for you?

With most of the Dalgleish and Cordelia books I think the original inspiration that would spark off the novel has been a place and then has come the characters and the detective and the plot. And although place was tremendously important in Innocent Blood because it's set in London and London is in a sense integral to the story, it wasn't a for question of "I want to set a book in London," as it was for instance with An Unsuitable Job for a Woman that "I wanted to set a book in Cambridge." Instead, the inspiration for Innocent Blood derived from a combination of a piece of legislation and a real-life murder case. The Legislation for Children Act in 1975 gave eighteen-year-old adopted children in England and Wales the right to set out on the journey of exploring who their real parents were by having access to their birth certificates. And the murder was a case called The Raven case. It was a long time ago, about 25 years ago. There was a young man who had been to visit his newborn child in hospital and had murdered his parents-in-law on the way home. And at the time, all these years ago, when he was hanged, I thought, "What about the new-born baby? How on earth and at what age do you tell a child that the reason why he has not got any grandparents and hasn't got a father is that the father was executed for their murder? Do you change your name? Or do you even go so far as to have him adopted?" So when the Children Act was passed, those two ideas came together. And I thought, "Suppose somebody began this journey of exploration who had fantasized a very satisfactory background and then discovered something as horrific as that?" So that was an entirely different inspiration from visiting a place and feeling, "I want to set a book here."

In what ways was this book similar to your other work?

I think it shows the influence of the detective story in that it is a book which does in fact have clues—clues to personality, clues to events that have happened.

Another departure from detective fiction is your play.

Yes. It is called A Private Treason. It's very difficult to describe what's in a play because there are so many complex interactions. But basically it is about a 36-year-old very intelligent woman who's got a senior job in the civil service and falls in love with a very much younger man. It's concerned with the conflict between somebody who has always lived by the mind and somebody who lives totally by the emotions.

I think it was a somewhat over-literary play. It was probably an unfashionable play (She Smiles) in that everyone spoke literate English. It was a well-crafted play. And I think it was a novelist's play.

But the theatre was filled every night.

Oh, yes. It ran for five weeks in Watford in April 1985. This is a place just north of London where plays are tried out. It had Susanna York in the lead role.

Is the play a mystery story?

No, but there is a crime within it, although it is not a mystery story as such.

Will the play be performed in the foreseeable future on the London stage or elsewhere?

There are no plans to produce it. I would wish to polish it more, first, but I'm not certain I will take the time to do so.

To bring us back to you as a person and a writer, I would like to ask: having lived a life that, as it turned out, was at times a difficult one, would you have wished to have had an easy life?

Well, it's dishonest to say "no" because I think we all live our lives trying to minimize our pain and maximize our happiness. But I think as a writer it's better to face a degree of trauma. Someone said if you want to be a writer you should have as much trauma in your early years as you can bear without breaking. I think something in me believes that, yes.

Do you feel that the goodness in people ultimately prevails over the inevitable rougher sides of human nature?

I hope it can. I like to think it can. I suppose we all need to believe that love is stronger than death, that the human spirit is indestructible, can surmount almost anything that fate can throw against it. But part of me believes that personal tragedy and in particular physical pain can break anybody. There is, I suppose, in my own personality a dichotomy between the optimism which is part of my nature—probably just a physical thing—and this knowledge of just how dark and dreadful life can be for many people.

Many of my books are—well, they're to do with death—but they're also to do with love, different aspects of human love.