Reviewed by Rod McLary
Patricia Cornwell is a best-selling author of over forty books – most of which feature her much-loved character Dr Kay Scarpetta a forensic pathologist. Her first novel Postmortem won the Creasey, the Edgar, the Anthony and Macavity Awards – the first book ever to win these major awards in one year. Books featuring Dr Scarpetta have gone on to win various other awards over the ensuing thirty-six years.
Now Patricia Cornwell is written her story from when she was a young child through to the present day.
Her early experiences as a child with an emotional unavailable father and a mentally unstable mother are fraught with trauma and heartache. These experiences are explicated over nearly 200 pages and form a substantial proportion of the book. This section makes for a harrowing read and it can be truly said that her childhood was traumatic – especially when she and her brothers were fostered by a harsh and unforgiving foster mother who seems to have directed much of her anger towards a young and vulnerable ‘Patsy’ Cornwell. This trauma is further exacerbated by at least two occasions where Patsy was sexually molested by adult men.
It is said that a child needs just one person to care for him or her to go some way in ameliorating the previous negative and hurtful experiences. The author was fortunate to find such a person in Ruth Graham – wife of the evangelist Dr Billy Graham – who continued to remain close to the author for the rest of her life. In 1983, Patricia Cornwell wrote a biography of Ruth Graham which was later reprinted in 1996 and 1997 with different titles.
Like many other famous writers – Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, and Val McDermid to name just three – Cornwell began her writing career as a reporter; first for The Charlotte Observer initially editing television listings but later covering crime. It can be fairly said that her interest in crime and forensics began here. But it was in 1984 when Cornwell met Dr Marcella Fierro a medical examiner in Richmond Virginia that she was inspired to create Kay Scarpetta. Astute readers of this autobiography will also identify other early influences of the Scarpetta novels – individual safety, the importance of family, and the sexual self-discovery of Scarpetta’s niece Lucy. Cornwell’s early experience with predatory males and manipulative behaviours of those in authority are reflected in the novels. As another well-known female crime writer – P D James – once said ‘all fiction is autobiography’.
In the latter sections of the book, the writing becomes rather patchy. There are many names being dropped – George H W and Barbara Bush, the actor Demi Moore, and Nicole Kidman et al – and the events which Cornwell attended are sometimes short on context. However, for readers of the Scarpetta novels, True Crime does offer another perspective on how the novels were created and the origins of Dr Kay Scarpetta. Perhaps Patricia Cornwell should have the last word: We will be gone one day, you know [17 April 1980].
True Crime
[2026]
by Patricia Cornwell
Hachette
ISBN: 978 1 4087 2505 4
$34.99; 454pp