As
she often said when asked the perennial question ‘How do you write your books?’
it was, for her, a question of place. Only when she had fixed on a setting – and
not before – did plot, characters, suspense, and solution begin to
coalesce. This was often, though not
always, a distinctive physical, geographical place like the East Anglian coastline,
which she caught so beautifully in Death in Holy Orders (2001) or other
dramatic seascapes such as the Dorset coast of The Black Tower (1975) or
‘Combe Island’ off Cornwall in The Lighthouse (2005). She proved to be just as comfortable
describing (or more accurately, letting her characters observe) urban settings,
notably Cambridge in high summer in An Unsuitable Job For a Woman (1972)
and London – and in Original Sin (1994) specifically the River Thames.
Sometimes
the setting was a specific place, and as Phyllis James wrote crime novels, it
could be a specific place where something very nasty has taken place, as in the
bloodstained vestry of St Matthew’s church Paddington in A Taste For Death (1986)
with its two almost decapitated bodies. I
remember there was something of a furore when that book – with that opening
chapter - came out for it gave lie to the suggestion that P. D. James was a
writer of “cosy” mysteries. True, she
wrote traditional English detective stories and did so with a skill, which did
– and will forever – rank with the best of Allingham, Marsh, Sayers and
Christie but she was far from a cosy writer.
Murder, in her books, was never bloodless or provided simply as an
artifice to the plot.
From
Agatha Christie she learned the lesson not to make her series detective an
eccentric, if not bizarre, character and from Dorothy Sayers she learned the
danger of falling in love with her central protagonist. And so her hero Adam Dalgliesh was, from the
outset, created as a professional policeman with an established (albeit tragic)
family history whose career loyal readers would follow as he ascended the giddy
heights of Scotland Yard over the years.
His creator imbued him with the qualities she admired (in both sexes):
intelligence, courage, sensitivity, and reticence.
When
writing about this process and her own career in Talking About Detective Fiction
(2009), she said, interestingly: If I
started today it is likely that I would choose a woman, but this was not an
option at the time when women were not active in the detective force.
Nor
were they particularly dominant in crime fiction. It is easy to forget that when P.D. James’
first Adam Dalgliesh novel, Cover Her Face, was published in 1962;
the best-seller charts were dominated (and internationally dominated) by male
thriller writers. Alistair Maclean, Hammond Innes, and Ian Fleming were well
into their stride and the careers of Len Deighton and John Le Carré were just
taking off. True, Agatha Christie,
Margery Allingham, and Ngaio Marsh were still active, but there seemed to be a
trend towards spies rather than detectives and exotic thriller locations, from
the Arctic to the Amazon, rather than small English villages like St Mary Mead. Also, most notable innovations in crime
writing appeared to be taking place in America rather than Britain, spearheaded
by Ed McBain and Ross Macdonald.
A
woman writing traditional English detective stories with a strong sense of Christian
morality seemed to be swimming against the tide, but that is exactly what
Phyllis James did, although she once admitted to me that the real incentive to
sell that first novel was to pay for a new carpet in the living room!
Although
her skill as a writer was recognised by the critics, commercial success did not
come overnight but by the time Anglia Television began to serialise her novels
in the 1980s, she was well on her way to becoming a household name. She won three Silver Daggers from the Crime
Writers’ Association, though amazingly never a Gold Dagger – and equally
surprisingly was never elected CWA Chairman, something I had to look up, as it
seemed so unlikely. She was, however,
the 1987 recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement
though at that time, her writing career was probably only just approaching the halfway
mark.
In
a writing career spanning 52 years, she was not a prolific author – certainly
not by crime-writing standards – producing 20 novels, 14 of which featured Adam
Dalgliesh.
The
first P.D. James book I read, though, was not a Dalgliesh but her stand-alone
1980 novel about adoption and ‘lost’ children, Innocent Blood. To this day I think it remains my favourite
and I was rather proud to hear Ruth Rendell, in a radio tribute to Phyllis yesterday,
say that it was also her favourite.
I
first met Phyllis through the Dorothy L. Sayers Society, of which she was the
Patron for many years. She gave the
first annual Sayers Memorial Lecture at Witham in Essex (where Sayers had
lived) and I gave the second. We both
returned to Witham in 2007 to launch the Essex Book Festival and, after the
formalities were done and dusted, she joined me in an impromptu
question-and-answer session with visitors to Witham public library.
When
one would-be novelist asked, rather plaintively: “What do you have to do to
write a book?” Phyllis and I answered
loudly and in perfect unison: “Read!” though we had not, honestly, rehearsed.
At
the funeral of her friend and fellow Detection Club member Harry Keating in
2011, she gave a heartfelt oration of which I know Harry would have approved. At the wake after the service she was
naturally sombre, but as charming and polite as ever. We talked about her forthcoming novel Death
Comes to Pemberley and she hinted that not only did she have an idea
for the ‘next Dalgliesh’ but also for the
one after that.
I
have no idea how far she got with the next Dalgliesh, but she always said in
public that her detective hero “would die with her” and it seems, sadly as if
he has.
I
cannot say I knew Phyllis well. We were
of very different generations and traditions when it came to crime writing, but
British crime writing in particular is a broad church and Phyllis was a
charming, wise, and supremely talented pillar of that church. I doubt we will see her like again.
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Pictures
courtesy of Mike Ripley and the Shots Collective.
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Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of
Holland Park, OBE, rose to fame for her series of
detective novels starring policeman and poet Adam Dalgliesh. James
began writing in the mid-1950s. Her
first novel, Cover
Her Face, featuring the
investigator and poet Adam
Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, named after a teacher at Cambridge
High School, was published in 1962. Many
of James's mystery novels take place against the backdrop of the UK's
bureaucracies, such as the criminal justice system and the National Health
Service, in which James worked. In 1991,
she was created a life peer as Baroness James of Holland Park and
sat in the House of Lords as a Conservative.
She revealed in 2011 that The Private
Patient was the final Dalgliesh novel.
As guest editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme in December 2009, James conducted an
interview of BBC Director General Mark Thompson, in which she seemed critical of some of his
decisions. Regular Today presenter Evan Davis commented that "She shouldn't be guest editing; she should be permanently presenting
the programme". During the 1980s, many of James's mystery novels were
adapted for television by Anglia
Television for
the ITV network in the UK. The BBC has adapted Death in Holy Orders in 2003, and The Murder Room in 2004, both as one-off dramas
starring Martin Shaw as Dalgliesh.
Her novel The Children of Men (1992) was the basis for the feature
film Children
of Men (2006), directed
by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Clive Owen, Julianne
Moore and Michael Caine. She wrote 14 novels featuring Adam Dalgliesh,
2 novels featuring Cordelia Gray and a number of non-fiction books.
P D James was the President of the Society of Authors
between 1997 and 2013. She was a Fellow
of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts. She also held Honorary Fellowships of both St
Hilda’s College Oxford and Girton College Cambridge to name a few.
Her books won a number of awards and were shortlisted
numerous times as well –
1971 Best Novel
Award, Mystery Writers of America (runner-up): Shroud
for a Nightingale
1972 Crime Writers' Association (CWA)
Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction: Shroud for a Nightingale
1973 Best Novel Award,
Mystery Writers of America (runner-up): An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
1986 Mystery Writers
of America Best Novel Award (runner-up): A Taste for Death
1987 CWA Cartier
Diamond Dagger (lifetime achievement award)
1992 Deo Gloria
Award: The Children of Men
1992 The Best
Translated Crime Fiction of the Year in Japan, Kono Mystery ga Sugoi! 1992: Devices and Desires
1999 Grandmaster
Award, Mystery Writers of America
2010 Best Critical
Nonfiction Anthony Award for Talking About Detective Fiction
2010 Nick Clarke Award for
interview with Director-General of
the BBC Mark Thompson whilst
guest editor of Today radio programme.
In 2008, she was inducted
into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame at the inaugural ITV3 Crime
Thriller Awards.
The Guardian obituary can be
found here
and here. From the Independent
and the Telegraph. The BBC also have
a video interview with Nick Higham who talks about her work.
Such a thoughtful and personal piece, Mike. I liked that anecdote with the one word piece of advice to the budding novelist. "I doubt we will see her like again." So true. Like the end of an era almost.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this, Mike. Not only a fine tribute and insightful assessment of her writing but a witty and warm reminiscence. There's no finer bit of advice than READ! to any budding novelist.
ReplyDelete