August 20, 2012 -
Unfortunately the Wellington book launch for The Search for Anne Perry has been cancelled. The word just came through from the publisher – we’re very sorry if you were planning to go , as it would have been a wonderful event. But circumstance has not been kind, leading to the launch and talk’s cancellation.The book is still available at all good booksellers, ourselves included.
$44.99 in Trade Paperback
You can still listen to Joanne Drayton on Radio NZ’s podcast of her live interview.
On 22 June 1954, Juliet Hulme and her friend Pauline Parker murdered Pauline’s mother Honora in Christchurch. Both girls were subsequently charged with murder and tried in a court case that was widely covered by the press in New Zealand, and overseas
Below -Joanne Drayton
Since Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, public interest in this case, and Juliet Hulme in particular, who is now a highly successful crime writer under the name Anne Perry, has been intense. Perry, until recently, has never wanted to speak about the events of her childhood, but has relented and agreed to in-depth interviews with Joanne Drayton, a NZ scholar and biographer of great acclaim. The resulting book is The Search for Anne Perry.
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In 1994, director Peter Jackson released the film Heavenly Creatures, based on a famous 1950s matricide committed in New Zealand by two teenage girls embroiled in an obsessive relationship. This film launched Jackson’s international career. It also forever changed the life of Anne Perry, an award-winning, bestselling crime writer, who at the time of the film’s release was publicly outed as Juliet Hulme, one of the murderers. A new light was now cast, not only on Anne’s life, but also her novels, which feature gruesome and violent deaths, and confronting, dark issues including infanticide and incest. Acclaimed literary biographer, Joanne Drayton, intersperses the story of Anne’s life with an examination of her writing, drawing parallels between Anne’s own experiences and her characters and storylines. Anne’s books deal with miscarriages of justice, family secrets exposed, punishment, redemption and forgiveness, themes made all the more poignant in light of her past. Anne has sold 25 million books worldwide and published in 15 different languages, yet she will now forever be known as a murderer who became a writer of murder stories. Drayton was been given unparalleled access to Anne, her friends, relatives, colleagues and archives to complete the book. The result is a compelling read which provides an understanding of the girl Anne was, the adult she became, her compulsion to write and her view of the world.