The Search For Anne Perry

By Joanne Drayton

Until 1994, the world knew Anne Perry as the writer of bestselling crime fiction at the peak of her writing career. But following the release of Peter Jackson’s film Heavenly Creatures, about the sensational 1954 Parker-Hulme murders, came the shocking revelation that Anne Perry began life as Juliet Hulme, the teenager jointly convicted of murdering her friend’s mother.

Life would never be the same for Perry. That a convicted murderer had gone on to become a celebrated crime writer with worldwide sales of over 25 million books was tantalizing enough. But with careful analysis of her writing reveals that these were more than simple crime stories; spiritual and philosophical complexities thread their way through Anne Perry’s works. Was Perry, in fact, revealing more about herself in the characters she was creating?

Acclaimed biographer Joanne Drayton takes on the challenge of exploring Perry’s writing to uncover her world view and compulsion to write. The famously private Perry agreed to be comprehensively interviewed for the book and has allowed Drayton unparalleled access to her friends, relatives, colleagues and archives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781443417846

Joanne Drayton

Joanne Drayton is Associate Professor in the Department of Design at UNITEC, Auckland. Her critically acclaimed 2008 NGAIO MARSH: A LIFE IN CRIME was a Christmas pick of the UK Guardian in 2008. This is her fifth biography.

Reviews for The Search For Anne Perry

[janarose1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I hate to say this, but this book was practically unreadable. The author spent most of her time describing the plot lines of Anne Perry's books. At not in an insightful or reflective manner. Every once in a while she would throw in a paragraph saying that the novel showed some parallels to Anne's crime or psyche. Overall, a bust!

[juglicerr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you don't know about Anne Perry and Juliet Hulme, you may want to skip this review after the first two paragraphs and let Drayton reveal her life in the structure that she has chosen. It should be noted that Anne Perry, her friends, and her family, cooperated fully with this biography. Drayton begins in a prelude with the moment when Anne Perry's past and present collided, and then, in the book proper, begins with her return to England from Los Angeles and works forward, flashing back to her previous history at intervals. This could easily be a confusing way to tell the story; I had no problem following it, but I was already familiar with Perry's past. I would be interested to know how anyone who didn't previous know the back story found it. The book proper ends with Perry's arrival in Los Angeles so many years before, and then ends with a postscript.I am not a Perry fan, having read only a few of her early Pitt books, but I was interested in Perry for other reasons and still enjoyed the book. Someone once said that any life, properly written, is interesting, and, beyond my own interests, I enjoyed this look at her life and the nature of the writing life. Drayton gives synopses of many of Perry's books, especially her Pitt and Monk books, as well as the fantasy novels Tathea and Come Armaggedon. The latter two "are the only books she has written that she rereads often and for pleasure. These books are her theology and her comfort, and the journey of the soul of Tathea, the principal female protagonist, is a metaphor for her own." Some reviewers found the synopses dull, or felt that they revealed too much information about the plot. I found them interesting; of course I am unlikely to read the books, but Drayton didn't usually give away the ending.This begins the "SPOILER", if you don't know about Juliet Hulme. Hulme, aged 15, in conjunction with her very close friend (some say lover) Pauline Parker, aged 16, murdered Pauline's mother Honorah by beating her to death with a brick in Christchurch, New Zealand. They apparently thought only Honorah was standing between them leaving New Zealand together to go to South Africa, and presumably later, Los Angeles. This is one of the most infamous murder cases in New Zealand, and has inspired numerous fictional works, been featured in numerous crime anthologies, but surprisingly inspired only one book, called Parker & Hulme : a Lesbian View by Julie Glamuzina and Alison J. Laurie (1991). After serving about five years in prison, Juliet and Pauline were released, given new names, and left New Zealand. Their new identities remained a secret until the release in 1994 of the movie Heavenly Creatures, by Peter Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh. Jackson and Walsh didn't reveal the secret, but the success of the movie created a search for Juliet and Pauline's new identities. Anne Perry was Juliet Hulme.I saw the movie, and years later read Peter Graham's So Brilliantly Clever (2011), under its American title Anne Perry and the Murder of the Century (2013). If your chief interest in Anne Perry/Juliet Hulme is the crime, this is the better book to read. That said, it makes The Search for Anne Perry very interesting as well. Graham is much less sympathetic towards Anne Perry than Drayton is. He thinks that she misrepresents the facts of the crime to make herself look less responsible. He dismisses her claim that the drugs she was using interfered with her judgement, and that she was a reluctant participant acting only to try and prevent her friend's suicide. What Drayton sees as an honest spiritual struggle of remorse and redemption he dismisses as an appealing dog-and-pony show. Like Drayton, he appeals to her works for support. I think that the difference in perspective may largely be due to the fact that Graham is coming to the matter after having investigated the crime, whereas Drayton, and the Perry friends saw her first as a beloved friend and respected author, and only later learned her past. I would be interested to know if Graham ever read this book, and what he made of it.On the other hand, if you are principally reading this book as an Anne Perry fan, you may not feel the need to read the Graham book. Drayton covers the crime pretty well, if not in the same depth, so it depends on how interested you are. Parker & Hulme : a Lesbian View by Julie Glamuzina and Alison J. Laurie (1991), is pretty obviously a niche book. I would recommend it to people who are very interested in the case or a slice of history about 1950s New Zealand and lesbians. I note that Anne Perry has declared that she and Pauline Parker were not lesbians.

[gpangel_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Search for Anne Perry by Joanne Drayton is a 2014 Arcade Publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.I remember distinctly having a conversation with a friend on a popular book club site about how much we enjoyed the work of Anne Perry. Another member added that while her books were entertaining enough, Anne's personal history was what really peaked his interest. I had no idea what he referring to, so he began to elaborate. Like many people in this book, my initial reaction was that this man must have been confused. Of course I got onto the web and searched for "Anne Perry". I was shocked to learn that I was the once that was confused. I had never heard anything at all about this murder conviction. As I continued to research the story I finally put it together that Anne Perry was one of the girls that killed a woman in New Zealand. I had heard the story before, but I never put it together that one of my favorite historical mystery authors as in reality Juliett Hulme. The on line discussion about Anne's books had become heated by the time I checked back in to the book club. Some folks swore they would never read a book by Anne Perry, others felt she had paid her debt and was now leading a productive life. Still others waffled on whether or not she had really paid her debt because she only spent five years in prison. The debate may still be going on for all I know. I will confess to having some mixed feelings myself. By the time I discovered Anne's history I had developed a bond with Thomas and Charlotte Pitt and was also a fan of Anne's Christmas stories. So, since I had read so many of her books and really enjoyed them, I decided I was going to continue to read them.When I saw this book listed on Edelweiss I couldn't pass it up. I wanted to know more about Anne as an adult and hopefully away from her crime. How did she manage to hide her true identity for long ? How did she get started writing novels? Why, with her history did she write murder mysteries? Had she ever married, did she date, have close friends? I couldn't wait to dive into this one. At this time I should tell anyone that is looking for a standard biography that this book isn't like that, really. Thankfully, the author didn't make the book about Anne's past by going over the crime itself. Instead, the author starts with the period in Anne's life when a film was being made about her crime and it sparked the interest of the media. For Anne this meant that she was finally "outed" as the infamous Juliett Hulme. What would her publisher think? What about her fans and readers? It seems that while there were those that took the news hard, most people went right about their business and didn't really give it a great deal of thought. The books continued to sell and Anne continued to write and publishers continue to publish them. But what of those years after Anne was released from prison? Well, it seems Anne joined the Mormon church and lived by the strictures of the religion. She did have some relationships with men, but they usually ended after the truth came out and Anne always felt like she needed to be honest about that if the relationship began to grow serious. She did have close friends and later she became closer with her younger brother who even helped her with research for her books. My impression of Anne is that she was a little eccentric at times, but she had learned to channel her imagination into a productive career and was basically a regular person constantly doing battle with her past. Most of those in Anne's inner circle were quite fond of her and always spoke highly of her. Yet, it is apparent that Anne still lived a very isolated life. Did the author tone down the absolute horror of the crime Anne committed? Yes and no. Yes, she did because she failed to delve into it in detail and no, because it was at the heart of everything Anne did as an adult. Her life in prison was touched on and we do get the impression her time there was far more brutal than one might think. The author also spent a lot of time giving the reader insight into Anne's books. From the Pitt series to the Monk series and various themes Anne touched on in these novels that could suggest a certain allegory between Anne's history and the characters in her books. This was interesting and could have been true to some extent. Some have been critical of the time spent talking about the books, but that is what Anne does for a living. It is huge part of her life I thought it should have been included. Did I feel like I really learned anything about Anne personally? No, not really. I didn't really come away feeling I knew her any better than before. I learned some interesting facts about her, I learned a little about the publishing business and I gained some new insight into her books, but I don't feel like I got a real handle on who Anne Perry really is. By all accounts she is a very nice woman, still loyal to the Mormon church and still active in writing. She has lived a relatively normal and quiet life keeping a few people close to her and everyone else at arm's length. I did get the feeling that there was a great deal of information left out of the book and yes, there was the impression that perhaps the author smoothed something over or gave into pressure and left out anything that could be construed as unflattering. This is an interesting read, but I wish it could have gone into some areas in more detail and I don't mean the murder. I'm not sure if anyone really gets too close to Anne or if anyone will ever get a handle on who she really is . We will probably never get a look at Anne in a deeply personal sense. So, it would seem that Anne will remain a mystery to most of us. Overall I will give this one a C or 3 stars.

[samsattler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Finally...a book that gets inside the head of author Anne Perry in which Perry herself explains what was in her head when she, along with another teen girl, brutally beat that girl's mother to death with a stocking-enclosed piece of brick. Because I've been wondering for years about Perry's rather strange decision to make her living as a murder mystery writer after having been convicted of committing one of the more horrible murders in the history of New Zealand, I had high hopes that "The Search for Anne Perry" would answer some of my questions and doubts about Perry. What I did not expect was to come away with much sympathy for Anne Perry - but even that happened.Joanne Drayton managed to get the full cooperation of Anne Perry for this biography despite the fact that Drayton is from New Zealand and that the book would first be published there (the U.S. edition is new but was, I think, published in New Zealand in 2012). For that reason, "Search" is filled with Anne Perry quotes that help explain how such a terrible murder ever happened, how Perry survived five years in harsh prisons, how her Mormon faith allowed her to move on with the rest of her life, and why she believes today that she should be forgiven of her crime. Drayton offers her on analysis, too, often by quoting characters from Perry's books in which it seems that Perry is speaking through those characters.My only complaint - and I did find it irritating - is that Drayton, in the process of quoting those characters often insists on going through much more plot detail than is necessary to make her points about Perry. She sometimes even includes spoilers (unnecessarily, in my opinion) that Anne Perry readers probably would rather not learn. But that's a minor quibble. This book ultimately delivered the goods for me, and for that reason, I am recommending it to others who might still be wondering about Anne Perry's murder conviction and how she kept her past hidden (even from her agents and publishers) for as long as she managed.

[reannon_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Biography of Anne Perry, author of the Pitt and Monk Victorian mystery series., among other works.

[etxgardener · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've been a fan of Anne Perry's Victorian murder mysteries for a long,long time, and I was shocked to discover in the late 1990's that she was one of the "heavenly Creatures" in Peter Jackson's film about obsessive teenage friendship and matricide in New Zealand in the 1950's. This book tells Anne's story - not only of the crime and her time in prison, but also of her carving out a new life for herself after her release.The story of the crime and Anne's personal journey in search of redemption is fascinating, but the author spends way too much time analyzing each and every one of Ms. Perry's books and this makes the book way too long. Perry is not a good enough writer for her biographer to devout so many pages to what, after all is just genre fiction. I found myself skipping these pages altogether as the book went on.Still, Perry's story is compelling and this was well worth the read.

[figgles_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An sympathetic treatment of the life story of the mystery author Anne Perry who was famously revealed to be Juliet Hulme, one of the teenage murderers who's story was told in the Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures. Anne's life challenges to look at how we treat someone who has committed a horrendous crime but who spend their life in expiation and living the desire to be "good". A little too much description of the books, however I see how this is used to emphasise the themes of redemption and expiation. An interesting read. Made me think of this exchange from Dorothy Sayer's Gaudy Night:Miss Burrows : Excuse my saying so, Miss Vane, but given your own terrible experience, I wonder that you should still decide to write the sort of books you do.Harriet Vane : You're saying that anyone with proper feelings would rather scrub floors for a living? Well, I should scrub floors very badly, and I write mysteries rather well.