Time to Be in Earnest Read Free Page B

whether the calendar year or the day after a birthday, produces in me a desire to get rid of rubbish, rearrange my books and drag into the light of day old boxes of long-forgotten papers. This morning I discovered a book of press cuttings which I started keeping after the publication of my first novel,
Cover Her Face
, published in the autumn of 1962. It is a hardback analysis book which I imagine I picked up as a bargain, finding the ruled blue and red lines helpful to the careful placing of my cuttings. I can’t be the only writer who, in the flush of triumph and excitement after publication of her first novel, decided to keep reviews and articles. For me the enthusiasm lasted only until publication of the second novel. But I was glad to find this first press-cuttings book although it has survived more by chance than by careful hoarding.
    Some of the reviews were laudatory, and most encouraging. All assumed that P. D. James was a man except Leo Harris in
Books and Bookmen
, who wrote: “This is a very fine first, and I can’t help feeling that the author is a woman.” E. D. O’Brien in
The Illustrated London
News
wrote: “It is always pleasant, though not always possible, to praise a first novel.
Cover Her Face
, by P. D. James, justifies just such an enthusiastic encomium.” It ended: “Insofar as this is a mystery, I failed to solve it. Mr. James will, I hope, give us many more such treats.” Francis Iles in
The Guardian
wrote:
“Cover Her Face
by P. D. James is one of those extraordinary first novels which seem to step straight into the sophisticated preserves of the experienced writer, yet retain the newcomer’s freshness of approach.” The reviewer in the
Oldham Evening Chronicle & Standard
wrote that the book was “the kind of novel which suggests that the author is planning a lengthy career in the business—particularly with the introduction of a colourful character in Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh.” But he or she much deplored the cost of the book—18 shillings. By present book-price standards a hardback at less than a pound was not exceptionally dear, but it was certainly not cheap for what the reviewer a little unkindly described as “this kind of material.” An established writer, he suggested, could perhaps get away with this overpricing, but not a newcomer.
    There is even the cutting of an interview with photograph by a reporter from the
Surrey Comet
who came to talk to my younger daughter, Jane. We were then living at 127 Richmond Park Road, Kingston. I was working as a Principal Administrative Assistant at the North West Regional Hospital Board. Both Jane and her elder sister, Clare, were at home, and my husband Connor was with us, rarely, between bouts of hospitalization. Obviously he hadn’t been at home at the time of the interview but, due to Jane’s discretion, the article is blessedly free of details about his illness or suggestions of the brave little woman writing to support her family. Jane said that her mother had always been keen on writing, was highly delighted to have this first novel published, and that most of her evenings and weekends were spent working on her books. It is an apt comment on what life at the time was actually like. The article ends: “In Inspector Dalgliesh, she has a character who will benefit from greater attention and who no doubt will be called upon to solve future P. D. James mysteries.” There is a photograph in which I sit, arms folded, gazing at the camera, hair obviously newly set, and with an air of slightly quizzical self-satisfaction.
    It is interesting how many reviewers assumed that I was a man. One of the questions I am often asked after signings is whether I deliberately chose to write under the name P. D. James in order to conceal my sex. Some questioners actually assume that I thought it an advantage to bemistaken for a man. This certainly never entered my mind and I am grateful to have been born a woman, perhaps more from an innate