Amazing Stories from the Web
Part 4
Heavenly Creatures
Pre-Reading: Discussion Questions.
1. Why do people commit crimes?
2. Can an episode in a person’s childhood influence their whole life?
“Heavenly Creatures” (1994) is the name of a film in which Kate Winslet, then a teenager herself, played the role of Juliet Hulme, a notorious girl who, together with her friend Pauline Parker, murdered Pauline’s mother in 1954 in New Zealand. The brutality of the crime shocked the world; the reasons for the murder, which the two girls declared at the trial, left everybody numb.
The daughter of Dr. Henry Hulme, an English physicist, Juliet (born 1938) was diagnosed with tuberculosis as a child and sent to the Caribbean and South Africa in hopes that a warmer climate would improve her health. She rejoined her family when her father took a position as Rector of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand when she was 13. There, she became friends with Pauline Parker.
A few years later, Juliet’s parents were going through a painful separation and divorce. When Juliet learned that she was to go to Africa and live with some relatives, she told Pauline. The two teenage girls, who had concocted a rich fantasy life together populated with famous actors such as James Mason and Orson Welles, did not want to be separated. They had hoped to go to England with Juliet’s father after the divorce. They had never even thought that such a course of events was highly unlikely. Pauline’s mother explained the situation to her daughter. Pauline believed that her mother would block her from leaving New Zealand with Juliet.
Pauline began to write in her diary that she wished her mother to die, and eventually hatched a murder plot that she shared with Juliet. It seemed to Pauline that if she killed her mother, they could then go to England with Juliet, to live happily ever after. On June 22, 1954, the girls took Honora Rieper, Pauline’s mother, for a walk in the park. Pauline struck the first blow, expecting the woman to die at once. Instead, it took 45 blows to kill her. The ruthlessness of the crime has contributed to its notoriety. The girls stood trial and were found guilty on August 29, 1954. They were too young for the death penalty, so they were convicted and sentenced to correctional institutions. Five years later, both were released, on condition that they were never to meet or contact each other again.
Pauline still lives, under another name, in New Zealand.
Juliet, after her release, took the name Anne Perry, Perry being her stepfather’s last name. He was the person who encouraged his stepdaughter to turn over a new leaf, to begin a new life. She worked as a secretary, a flight attendant, and a cruise ship stewardess. However, it seems that all she ever wanted to become was a writer. She began putting together a book in her twenties. Her first attempts were rejected by magazines and publishers alike, until her first novel, The Cater Street Hangman, was published in 1979 under the name Anne Perry. She embarked on several series of detective novels about recurring characters, mostly living in the Victorian England. Thomas Pitt, police inspector, appeared in her very first novel, and, together with his wife, is still one of her major creations. William Monk, an amnesiac private detective, with his wife, Nurse Hester, is another popular series hero. Anne Perry published more than fifty novels and a number of stories. Her name is included into various “Best 100 Mystery Writers of the World” lists. She is the recipient of various genre awards.
In the beginning of the 1990’s, after one of her new books went to the top of bestseller lists, the media began to dig around in earnest, trying to unearth some facts about the life of this reclusive British writer who shot to international fame. It was only a matter of time and perseverance.
Soon, “PEOPLE” magazine published a sensational story about the 1954 murder, which
far surpassed any of the murders described by Anne Perry in her books. The 1994 film
appeared as a complete surprise to the writer and her family. She has done the only thing
possible under the circumstances: without denying that she was indeed the notorious Juliet
Hulme, she steadfastly refused to comment or discuss anything related to her crime and
imprisonment. She maintains her silence on the subject to this day, though she willingly
talks about her parents, and her stepfather.
As a child, she was quite often ill, and for lengthy periods of time. Once or twice, the doctors told her mother to be ready for the worst. But somehow, she survived all those troubles. Since she missed a lot of school, not just days or months but whole years, she wrote that she was forever grateful to her mother, who taught her to read and write at the age of four. In one of the interviews, she said: “Although I had various jobs there was never anything I seriously wished to do except write. It was my father who was responsible for encouraging me to write my ideas down. However, I was in my twenties before I started putting together the first semblance of a book, I was living in the county of Northumberland, in a small town called Hexham, not far from Hadrian’s wall, when I started writing the first draft of Tathea. When I did finally begin that book in earnest, just a few years ago, I was able to use the original manuscript for reference”.
Reporters and critics often ask Anne Perry about her chosen period, that of Victorian England. “I began writing mysteries set in Victorian London on a suggestion from my stepfather as to who Jack the Ripper might have been. I found that I was totally absorbed by what happens to people under pressure of investigation, how old relationships and trusts are eroded, and new ones formed. The Cater Street Hangman, the first to be accepted for publication, came out in 1979. I don’t know how many books I wrote before that. I do remember how thrilled I was when I finally had one in print!”
It is clear that Anne Perry is fascinated by the psychology of an individual, both the criminal and the investigator. Why does a person commit a crime? Why does another person keep after him or her, in spite of the dangers? Are we what we are because of our heredity, of our memories, or the environment? Another important side to her work is the exploration of those who surround her main characters. Would Pitt or Monk be what they are, or achieve success without the support of those who are closest to them? In that, as in her fascination with crime, we can see the influence of Anne’s own life.
In a recent interview, she wrote: “I have continued with the Victorian mysteries because I have come to love both the characters and the period. I like the contrast between glamour and squalor, the endless variety in the capital of Empire, largest post in the world, with men and goods for every quarter of the earth, and the immense energy of optimism.
I have loved the whole series because it is in a way the end of history and the beginning of the modern world, a time in Europe of unprecedented challenge and change, a test of who we are, and who we wish to be”.
Anne Perry’s novels are not light or “beach” reading. She is scrupulously attentive to detail, telling us about everyday life in Victorian times, including the way a housewife’s day used to begin, with her getting up at the crack of dawn to make the dough for daily bread. She also shows us that a human being is essentially the same today as they used to be a hundred years ago. She is convinced that anybody can reach out to the light and fight the inner demons.
heavenly adj. very beautiful, nice etc.; belonging to heaven
To read more about Anne Perry, you can use a search engine <yahoo.com>, <google.com>, or enter her name into the address line directly.