P D James

Why do you think people like reading of horror and death?

Well, I think this is a fascinating question, and I have given it a great deal of thought. I think paradoxically, you know, the detective story is psychologically reassuring. It does rest on the premise that murder is the unique crime, and that even the most unpleasant, disagreeable, dangerous person has the right to live his life to the last natural moment. And in an age when death and murder are so often gratuitous, this is reassuring. And then the puzzle at the heart of the novel is going to be solved at the end. And I think that we live in an age when we're beginning to suspect that some of our problems social, economic, international, really can't be solved. Now, here you have a puzzle, and at the end of the book, you know it's going to be solved by human ingenuity, human intelligence, human perseverance. That, too, is immensely reassuring.

How much courage did it take, Phyllis, in the first place to start writing?

I was a late starter for all sorts of reasons, being 19 when the war broke out and having to support my two daughters and husband when Connor was ill. And it does take a great deal of tenacity and determination, I think, to begin that first novel. Because otherwise you go on thinking one day I'll write it and you never get round to it. You don't. In fact, you realise that sooner or later you're going to say to your grandchildren, Of course what I really wanted to be was a writer. And had I had to speak those words, then my life would have been a failure in one very important respect.

Why crime? You've said before now that you chose it as a good apprenticeship. What for?

I began with crime because I did enjoy reading detective stories. I was very influenced by the women writers, Dorothy Alsayers, Nio Mars, Josephine Tay. I thought I could do it, and if so, you know, it's a popular form, it would stand a very good chance of being accepted. And I didn't want to write about the war or my husband's illness. I wanted to get away from too personal a note. Although I think actually all fiction is largely autobiographical, and much autobiography, of course, is fiction.

What was the source of this constant anxiety that you've mentioned [in childhood]?

I think children in those days were brought up a great deal more strictly than they are today. I suspect a lot of children suffered quite a high degree of anxiety. My father was pretty stern. In old age, I grew very much to respect him for his courage and his wit and his intelligence. But in childhood, I thought he was very fierce. My mother was very warm and very affectionate, but I don't think their relationship was always happy. And children, of course, do sense this.

What was it you fell for [in your husband, Connor]? What was he like?

He was Anglo-Irish. He was fair. I thought he was rather good looking, but he wasn't egregiously handsome. I think it was his humour and the charm. Really, that that's were the main attractions.

Was [writing] a kind of therapy? Was it a kind of escape?

I don't think it was therapy or escape, but I do think it was a psychological necessity. I felt I was born as a writer, I wasn't writing, and I needed to have that first novel written and published. To that extent, yes, it might perhaps have been therapy, but it was an enduring psychological need.

Why wouldn't you want to use [autobiographical material in a straight novel]?

I don't think I would want to write any book which humiliated someone I had once loved and who was no longer here to defend himself or herself. I don't think I would want to write great details about what I thought of my own parents' marriage. For one thing, one can never tell. One can't tell, really. We are all, I think, made by our past as well as by our genes. We probably all do the best we can. Some people do better than others. One has to have compassion and has to have pity. And I feel it would be arrogant, really, to reveal secrets which people would hate to have revealed were they still with us.