0:00:07 > 0:00:10Welcome to HARDtalk.
0:00:10 > 0:00:12I am Steven Sackur.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15There is a select club of fiction writers whose next book is eagerly
0:00:15 > 0:00:19anticipated by legions of fans around the world.
0:00:19 > 0:00:22And my guest today is in that club and has been for
0:00:22 > 0:00:24more than two decades.
0:00:24 > 0:00:27Patricia Cornwell can lay claim to have invented the whole
0:00:27 > 0:00:31genre of crime scene forensic detective fiction.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34Her investigator, Kay Scarpetta, has featured in two dozen novels
0:00:34 > 0:00:38and inspired a host of imitators.
0:00:38 > 0:00:41The author herself talks of her determination to confront
0:00:41 > 0:00:43and control her fears.
0:00:43 > 0:00:47Do her books tell us what she is frightened of?
0:01:14 > 0:01:16Patricia Cornwell, welcome to HARDtalk.
0:01:16 > 0:01:17Thank you.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20I've heard I do the same thing you do.
0:01:20 > 0:01:20What's that?
0:01:20 > 0:01:22Autopsies.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26Well, this isn't going to be an autopsy, but it is going to be
0:01:26 > 0:01:28a dissection of what you do.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32I want to begin by asking you, when did you first realise you had
0:01:32 > 0:01:37a gift for telling stories with an edge of darkness to them?
0:01:37 > 0:01:40Truth is, I realised it at a young age, because I was always making
0:01:40 > 0:01:42up stories, you know, and the kids loved
0:01:42 > 0:01:46to hear my stories.
0:01:46 > 0:01:48I realised very early on that I could tell stories
0:01:48 > 0:01:50in a very frightening way.
0:01:50 > 0:01:56One day I was holding forth in a vacant lot near my house,
0:01:56 > 0:02:02I was probably nine or ten, in North Carolina where I grew up,
0:02:02 > 0:02:05and I scared these little boys so badly they burst into tears
0:02:05 > 0:02:07and went racing home.
0:02:07 > 0:02:11I felt awful, and I went, "Oh, my goodness, I have the ability
0:02:11 > 0:02:12to make little boys cry."
0:02:12 > 0:02:16I should have acted on that and made them cry a whole lot more,
0:02:16 > 0:02:18but I felt bad about it.
0:02:18 > 0:02:21So I knew that I could scare people at a really young age.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25Very interesting, and you say you felt awful, but I dare say
0:02:25 > 0:02:26you felt a little empowered too.
0:02:26 > 0:02:28Because it gives you a certain power.
0:02:28 > 0:02:32It didn't stop me, in fact, you know, I was writing stories
0:02:32 > 0:02:35constantly, including in school, and they would pin them up
0:02:35 > 0:02:38on the bulletin board, like when I was in the fourth grade,
0:02:38 > 0:02:39a little kid.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43But I will tell you the most common phrase in any of my stories
0:02:43 > 0:02:47was "all of a sudden".
0:02:47 > 0:02:49You know, because everything was spooky and scary
0:02:49 > 0:02:52and it's someone walking under a street light in the shadows,
0:02:52 > 0:02:56and the moon and clouds going by, then I had to put a witch on a broom
0:02:56 > 0:02:59and draw a picture, so it was all spooky.
0:02:59 > 0:03:00My favourite holiday was Hallowe'en.
0:03:00 > 0:03:02I planned for it for months, loved it.
0:03:02 > 0:03:06You are painting this picture of you at nine or ten,
0:03:06 > 0:03:11I know by nine or ten your own life had had a lot of fear and sadness
0:03:11 > 0:03:13and upset in it, because your dad left home when you
0:03:14 > 0:03:16were very small child.
0:03:16 > 0:03:22I know your mum had mental issues, and had a breakdown
0:03:22 > 0:03:26when you were still a child.
0:03:26 > 0:03:36Was there a sense in which you were trying to impose control
0:03:36 > 0:03:39on your life, find a way of controlling things by writing
0:03:39 > 0:03:41stories, where you were the author of everything?
0:03:41 > 0:03:45You know, when I was little, I have to say if I had not,
0:03:45 > 0:03:48did not have artistic and some means to lift myself out of
0:03:48 > 0:03:52what was all round me, and it is not that it would be
0:03:52 > 0:03:55necessarily as bad to someone else as it was to me,
0:03:55 > 0:03:56but I am very sensitive.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59I don't know what it was, but I took things really hard,
0:03:59 > 0:04:03and my father leaving when I was five, and I adored him,
0:04:03 > 0:04:05and on Christmas morning of all things, I was -
0:04:05 > 0:04:08I still remember it as if it was yesterday,
0:04:08 > 0:04:11really, and a lot of other things, and my mother, several times
0:04:11 > 0:04:13when she had deep depression, she was hospitalised,
0:04:13 > 0:04:16and we went into foster care, and that was really bad,
0:04:16 > 0:04:19and I wasn't allowed to leave the house and things like that.
0:04:19 > 0:04:21So I developed this ability to transport myself,
0:04:21 > 0:04:25it is no accident that Star Trek was my favourite show on the rare
0:04:25 > 0:04:27occasion I was allowed to watch it.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30I wanted to beam myself somewhere else, and creativity
0:04:30 > 0:04:31gave me a chance do that.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35I think you are right, I think it has been tainted by fear
0:04:35 > 0:04:38and horror and going into those dark places, because I think I felt
0:04:38 > 0:04:41if I could go into them, maybe I wouldn't be afraid
0:04:41 > 0:04:42of them anymore.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45What is amazing, you have not only gone into them
0:04:45 > 0:04:48but you have stayed in them, to a certain extent.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51I guess, without trying to be a sort of pop psychologist, psychiatrist,
0:04:51 > 0:04:54you may have written to a certain extent to control
0:04:54 > 0:04:56and confront demons, but you have stayed doing it.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59Some people might have thought you conquered the demon,
0:04:59 > 0:05:01you had great success with the books, you could have moved
0:05:02 > 0:05:03on, but you keep writing them.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07It is like when Mary Shelley created Frankenstein, she didn't know that
0:05:07 > 0:05:09monster was going to live with her for eternity, right?
0:05:09 > 0:05:13So we create something that might actually be a means to you dealing
0:05:13 > 0:05:16or coping with your own psyche, and it kind of controls
0:05:16 > 0:05:20your life after that, but in my case I am happy it does.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23It is a good thing, it is better than what I came out of,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25which is a life with no control.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29This is the latest book, Chaos, I think it is the 24th.
0:05:29 > 0:05:30Yes.
0:05:30 > 0:05:31Of your Kay Scarpetta series.
0:05:31 > 0:05:32That is right.
0:05:32 > 0:05:35Would it be right to see all of them as a form of therapy?
0:05:35 > 0:05:37You could say that.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39Hopefully they don't read like therapy and they don't read
0:05:39 > 0:05:42like some neurotic drivel, which my early ones did,
0:05:42 > 0:05:49trust me, the ones that didn't get published.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52I work through a lot of things in this, and I have Scarpetta
0:05:52 > 0:05:53do the same.
0:05:53 > 0:05:56Her biggest underlying motivation is that she became an expert
0:05:56 > 0:06:01at death at a young age because she watched her father dying.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04I became an expert at loss, and the loss caused me
0:06:04 > 0:06:04to fear death.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08If you are little and you feel abandoned and alone and you are not
0:06:08 > 0:06:11sure who is taking care of you, you worry you won't survive,
0:06:12 > 0:06:13and I am lucky I did.
0:06:13 > 0:06:15You know, I really, really am.
0:06:15 > 0:06:19So I return to my own crime scene through a very poetic way of dealing
0:06:19 > 0:06:22with the life of Kay Scarpetta and the cases she works.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24She deals with the loss of her father by always
0:06:24 > 0:06:28being this expert in death, but no matter how much she picks it
0:06:28 > 0:06:30apart and puts it back together again,
0:06:30 > 0:06:33he will never be alive again and neither will any
0:06:33 > 0:06:33of her patients.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36How do you do that as human being?
0:06:36 > 0:06:39That is what is fun about these books, and interesting for me.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43How does she go on, and how do any of us, and so it is not
0:06:43 > 0:06:46just about a thriller, it is about much bigger
0:06:46 > 0:06:46subjects than that.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50Well, in a sense, and I said it at the beginning,
0:06:50 > 0:06:53you were the inventor of a genre which introduced us to the skills
0:06:53 > 0:06:55of the forensic investigator, interpreting crime scenes,
0:06:55 > 0:07:09using science, using research, and it seems to me there is linked
0:07:09 > 0:07:13there also with your beginnings and your professional life
0:07:13 > 0:07:16as a journalist, which was you going out finding stories and researching
0:07:16 > 0:07:19them, and also your obsession almost with the fine detail.
0:07:19 > 0:07:21It seems you really really want to dig.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24I am a bit of a weirdo that way.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27It is true, when I started out at the Charlotte Observer,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30within no time when they put me into the police beat,
0:07:30 > 0:07:33it happened within six months of my being hired as general
0:07:33 > 0:07:36assignment, and that was after I did the TV magazine and sent it
0:07:36 > 0:07:38to hell in a hand basket.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41I was the worst TV updater they have ever had in
0:07:41 > 0:07:42the history of newspaper.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46When I got into the police beat, I used wear a necklace that had
0:07:46 > 0:07:47a pendant with nothing on it.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50I felt like when I went off to college in life,
0:07:50 > 0:07:53I didn't know anything about anything, I had never
0:07:53 > 0:07:58written a term paper.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02Shakespeare meant going to see the movie when I was in high school,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05didn't know crap about life, and so when I got into journalism,
0:08:05 > 0:08:07everything was a brand-new experience to me.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11So I would take a story that had been written 20 times,
0:08:11 > 0:08:15and I would say look at it as if no-one had ever told it
0:08:15 > 0:08:18before, and next thing you know you are winning awards,
0:08:18 > 0:08:21because you are telling something that is right in front of everyone,
0:08:21 > 0:08:23but they don't see it when they walk past,
0:08:23 > 0:08:25and it is a great story.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28So that has just been my method, it is what I still do.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32Millions of people love these books, and, you know, there are, I guess,
0:08:32 > 0:08:35other writers too in the same sort of genre who write great detective
0:08:35 > 0:08:37fiction which sells by the million.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40There are other people who frankly aren't interested in crime fiction
0:08:40 > 0:08:41because of its predictability.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45I mean, the bottom line is, you know, when you write,
0:08:45 > 0:08:49read a crime thriller that there is going to be resolution.
0:08:49 > 0:08:53I mean, you know you have written two dozen, so we suspect you are not
0:08:53 > 0:08:57going to kill off Kay Scarpetta, she is going to come out on top.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00She may fire me some day, I worry about it all the time.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03Do you see that point, that you know, for anybody
0:09:03 > 0:09:07who doesn't want to enter a story sort of knowing what the outcome is,
0:09:07 > 0:09:10there is a problem with a lot of crime fiction.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13Well, you know, I think especially if you are talking about
0:09:13 > 0:09:14the more traditional, where it is conventional
0:09:14 > 0:09:17and there are certain tricks to the trade,
0:09:17 > 0:09:20I remember the first mystery convention, one of the only ones
0:09:20 > 0:09:23I went to in the early days, and they were talking about red
0:09:23 > 0:09:25herrings and buried clues, and I went what?
0:09:25 > 0:09:29This is coming out of the context of watching autopsies and crime
0:09:29 > 0:09:31scenes, a red herring is probably some weird food.
0:09:31 > 0:09:33I didn't know what they were talking about.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36And from the beginning, I have always gone away
0:09:36 > 0:09:39from the conventions of the genre, and you don't know necessarily.
0:09:39 > 0:09:42In Chaos, you probably have a pretty good idea
0:09:42 > 0:09:46who might behind a lot of this, but you don't know what is going
0:09:46 > 0:09:48on because it is more like real life.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51Have you ever written a story where there is no resolution,
0:09:51 > 0:09:53where the perpetrator walks away from the scene, scot-free?
0:09:53 > 0:09:55Yes, but he has got caught later.
0:09:55 > 0:09:56That is the point.
0:09:56 > 0:09:59I have had my fourth book, the person didn't get caught.
0:09:59 > 0:10:00You don't do that.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02But I went why not?
0:10:02 > 0:10:03It happens in real life.
0:10:03 > 0:10:05We will get him later.
0:10:05 > 0:10:07He didn't get caught for a long time.
0:10:07 > 0:10:08A really long time.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12One person we thought was caught isn't, so that is the way it works.
0:10:12 > 0:10:12That is life.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16You mean when you say he got caught eventually in a different book?
0:10:16 > 0:10:19A different book.
0:10:19 > 0:10:21She finally got - Scarpetta did him in,
0:10:21 > 0:10:22but it took a while.
0:10:22 > 0:10:26The other temptation a lot of readers have is to try to figure
0:10:26 > 0:10:29out how much of Kay Scarpetta, who so many people feel
0:10:29 > 0:10:32they know so well, is actually Patricia Cornwell.
0:10:32 > 0:10:34Well, there are many things about us that are similar,
0:10:34 > 0:10:36in term of our DNA you might say.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40I think like she does, I solve cases the way she does,
0:10:40 > 0:10:41I have the same sensibilities.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44I would like to think I am the type of humanitarian,
0:10:44 > 0:10:46have the same values she does.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49Beyond that there are huge differences.
0:10:49 > 0:10:52I am not Italian, I am not a fallen Catholic, I am more
0:10:52 > 0:10:54of a fallen everything else.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57I am not that smart, I am not educated the way she was,
0:10:57 > 0:10:59I couldn't really do an autopsy.
0:10:59 > 0:11:01I wouldn't try, it would be wrong.
0:11:01 > 0:11:06I don't really collect evidence at crime scenes,
0:11:06 > 0:11:16but I know how to describe it, so there many differences.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19And the other thing is, she is probably a lot...
0:11:19 > 0:11:22She has a much thicker skin, and she is much more disciplined
0:11:22 > 0:11:23than I would be.
0:11:23 > 0:11:24I am volatile.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27I am an artist, I get moods - she can handle it.
0:11:27 > 0:11:28She is much more disciplined.
0:11:28 > 0:11:30I would be a terrible Kay Scarpetta.
0:11:30 > 0:11:32She wouldn't make a very good Patricia Cornwell.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34That is the truth.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37She's seen a lot of the results of graphic violence.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40And much of it directed at young women.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42Not all of it, but much of it.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45Some of it is fetishised, a lot of it is sexual.
0:11:45 > 0:11:51How close to the edge of taste, I suppose,
0:11:51 > 0:11:53but also questions about voyeurism and titillation even...
0:11:53 > 0:11:58How close to the edge of those issues do you feel you get?
0:11:58 > 0:12:00It's funny you would say that.
0:12:00 > 0:12:08I am much more mindful of that edge than a lot of people would know.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12You want to get up close to it, but you don't want to cross it.
0:12:12 > 0:12:15The problem is knowing what that means, where is the edge
0:12:15 > 0:12:20and what does crossing it mean?
0:12:20 > 0:12:23And for my case, it's where it becomes violent in a way that's
0:12:23 > 0:12:24no longer safe.
0:12:24 > 0:12:28In other words, if you're showing what the killer is doing as opposed
0:12:28 > 0:12:31to showing what Scarpetta imagines, how she cleans up after the fact
0:12:31 > 0:12:35and solves things, the first part of that is a lot more dangerous
0:12:35 > 0:12:36than the latter part.
0:12:36 > 0:12:37You're safe when you're with her.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41So when I went to the third person point of view and started,
0:12:41 > 0:12:45in some books, getting into the mind of the killer, I did that for a few
0:12:45 > 0:12:49books and in my opinion I started getting over that line and I didn't
0:12:49 > 0:12:50like the way it felt.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53That's one of the reasons I stopped doing it.
0:12:53 > 0:12:55I should say, I thought you stopped doing that,
0:12:55 > 0:12:59writing in the third person rather than the I form, reading the book
0:12:59 > 0:13:02as though you were Kay, I thought you stopped doing that
0:13:02 > 0:13:05because the audience didn't seem to like it very much?
0:13:05 > 0:13:06They didn't like it.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09They didn't like it at all, but then I didn't like it either.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12And now I understand why they didn't like it, because...
0:13:12 > 0:13:14Maybe you shouldn't care that they didn't like it.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17As an artist, you surely have to write from within rather
0:13:17 > 0:13:20than write simply what you think your audience wants?
0:13:20 > 0:13:23I don't write what I think they want but I do care
0:13:23 > 0:13:24what they don't want especially.
0:13:24 > 0:13:27If something is disturbing and upsetting to my fans,
0:13:27 > 0:13:30like when I killed off Benton Wesley, it's like the little
0:13:30 > 0:13:33boys crying in the parking lot, I made the little boys cry
0:13:33 > 0:13:35in the parking lot, dammit, you know?
0:13:35 > 0:13:37And my fans were heartbroken, outraged, upset and...
0:13:37 > 0:13:40And when you talk about your fans, I'm just thinking to myself,
0:13:40 > 0:13:42you sound a bit like...
0:13:42 > 0:13:44Readers, whatever you want to call them.
0:13:44 > 0:13:47Whatever, but you sound a bit like a sort of franchise and I just
0:13:47 > 0:13:50think, when we think about the biggest selling
0:13:50 > 0:13:50thriller writers...
0:13:50 > 0:13:52I'm turning around squaring off at you now!
0:13:52 > 0:13:54Notice my body language has changed anyway.
0:13:54 > 0:13:56Well, that's good, but think about James Patterson
0:13:57 > 0:13:58and some of the others.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01They sell by the gazillion, but it's a bit industrial, you know?
0:14:01 > 0:14:03They have teams of writers, Patterson, overseas,
0:14:03 > 0:14:07and he presents them with sort of plot ideas and then they go
0:14:07 > 0:14:10and write it in the style of Patterson and it all becomes
0:14:10 > 0:14:11a little industrialised.
0:14:11 > 0:14:12Are you getting close to that?
0:14:12 > 0:14:13Never.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16Scarpetta is not going to let me share that writing with anybody.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19I wish I could sometimes, but she only talks to me.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21And she doesn't always talk to me.
0:14:21 > 0:14:25If I thought I could hire a team of people and produce three or four
0:14:25 > 0:14:28of these every year that the readers would love, I would do it.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31I would make more money, probably, than I do now.
0:14:31 > 0:14:33But I can't do that.
0:14:33 > 0:14:35These come from some place inside of me.
0:14:35 > 0:14:37I give them everything I've got while I'm doing it.
0:14:37 > 0:14:39I do care what the readers think.
0:14:39 > 0:14:42They spend their good money on these books and I wouldn't be
0:14:43 > 0:14:44here today if it wasn't them.
0:14:44 > 0:14:46Does it take it out of you?
0:14:46 > 0:14:49Yes, yes.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52Because we've talked about the dark places and there is darkness
0:14:52 > 0:14:53in the books.
0:14:53 > 0:14:55You say this is personal and your writing from your
0:14:56 > 0:14:56heart and yourself.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59And yet what is miraculous about what you do is pretty much
0:15:00 > 0:15:01every year there is a new one.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05I think you've been writing these books for pretty much 25 years
0:15:05 > 0:15:06and sure enough there are Scarpettas.
0:15:06 > 0:15:08So you churn them out.
0:15:08 > 0:15:09I try to.
0:15:09 > 0:15:11I try to do one a year.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13Occasionally I might do something else instead,
0:15:13 > 0:15:16like when I did Jack the Ripper, which the new one of those
0:15:16 > 0:15:17is coming out...
0:15:17 > 0:15:18So things like that, but...
0:15:18 > 0:15:21The books themselves, what they take out of me
0:15:21 > 0:15:22is, it's exhausting.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26It takes of all my focus and it hangs over my head the whole time
0:15:26 > 0:15:30I'm doing it.
0:15:30 > 0:15:31It's really hard.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34If the research that has taken the most out of me.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37When I first started doing all this, you really don't know what it's
0:15:37 > 0:15:40going to do to you until it's already happened, and then
0:15:40 > 0:15:41it's too late.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44There's no getting out of it and no going back.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48And I changed my life in a way that I may well have given
0:15:48 > 0:15:48myself a disease.
0:15:48 > 0:15:50I won't get over this!
0:15:50 > 0:15:51What do you mean, a disease?
0:15:51 > 0:15:54Because I have, like, post-traumatic stress type stuff.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56I have images and things that are like malware,
0:15:56 > 0:15:58I can't get them out of my head.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00I've seen things I don't show my readers.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03I've heard things I don't ever tell my readers.
0:16:03 > 0:16:05And when those scenes visit me, when I least expect,
0:16:05 > 0:16:09like when I'm lying in bed just trying to relax a bit and then
0:16:09 > 0:16:13I just get up and I have to just leave the room.
0:16:13 > 0:16:14Because they are too hard.
0:16:14 > 0:16:18And if I didn't write about it, that's at least something I can do
0:16:18 > 0:16:21with this really morbid a rather horrible database that I have
0:16:21 > 0:16:22in my head.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25To be honest with you, it's been hard.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28No, I haven't heard you talk quite like that before.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30It actually brings me back to where we started,
0:16:30 > 0:16:34with stuff that is in you that goes all the way back to childhood.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37Yeah.
0:16:37 > 0:16:41Including come and I have to ask you about this because I just wonder
0:16:41 > 0:16:44if it's still there in you, really close to the surface...
0:16:44 > 0:16:48You were abused as a child.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52I think that the two things I remember most is that I won't get
0:16:52 > 0:17:03over and I probably worry about it all the time,
0:17:03 > 0:17:06have the feeling of being existential, having no power,
0:17:06 > 0:17:08that nobody cares, you're invisible, you're nothing, you're not
0:17:08 > 0:17:09going to amount to anything.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13There's a part of me that will always feel like somehow it's
0:17:13 > 0:17:14going to turn out that way again.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18I will live running with that chasing me, that I will be
0:17:18 > 0:17:19that helpless child.
0:17:19 > 0:17:20Once again.
0:17:20 > 0:17:21And that's what keeps me going.
0:17:21 > 0:17:23And you don't get over these things.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26Sometimes, I have so immersed myself in the traumas and the tragedies
0:17:26 > 0:17:30of other people because I sort of desperately need to try to heal
0:17:30 > 0:17:34other people because I know what it feels like to have nobody who can do
0:17:34 > 0:17:35that for you.
0:17:35 > 0:17:39And then when somebody finally does, and I was given that gift
0:17:39 > 0:17:41with people like Ruth Graham, who make me feel like,
0:17:41 > 0:17:45wow, if that lady paid attention to me when I'm just this is nobody
0:17:45 > 0:17:47in this little town, maybe there's something special.
0:17:47 > 0:17:49It's really about healing yourself, isn't it?
0:17:49 > 0:17:52It's about healing myself and one of the ways we heal ourselves
0:17:52 > 0:17:54is to heal others.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58In fact I don't know of any other weight to heal yourself then to do
0:17:58 > 0:17:59that for other people.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02What I hear in your voice is actually an insecurity in a way
0:18:02 > 0:18:05that is release of rising for a woman who is one
0:18:05 > 0:18:08of the bestselling authors in the world, you know,
0:18:08 > 0:18:11who travels with an entourage, who has come up what all of us
0:18:11 > 0:18:14from the outside would regard as a fantastic life
0:18:14 > 0:18:15and so much that's good.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19And yet you still feel insecure?
0:18:19 > 0:18:20Oh, I'll never change.
0:18:20 > 0:18:22I'm still that scared little girl.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25I'm still that scared little girl afraid to open the closet door
0:18:25 > 0:18:29or look under the bed, and by god I'm going to because I can't stand
0:18:29 > 0:18:30being afraid of anything.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32And that's what people don't understand.
0:18:32 > 0:18:34They think I'm some superhero like Lucy in these books.
0:18:34 > 0:18:36I'm not.
0:18:36 > 0:18:39I learned all the things to do them but I'm really at heart just
0:18:39 > 0:18:43a little girl with a crayon writing poetry and making her own little
0:18:43 > 0:18:45books and selling them together and drawing pictures.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48And yet I've thrown myself into a house of horrors,
0:18:48 > 0:18:51to write something that I felt would matter and would change things
0:18:51 > 0:18:55and would empower people and take a character to do what I wish
0:18:55 > 0:18:56I could do.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58I wish I could kick butt the way she does.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01I'm glad you talk about Lucy because I did want to talk
0:19:01 > 0:19:04about her, but one particular aspect of her in particular,
0:19:04 > 0:19:07which is, you introduce this character, she is the niece
0:19:07 > 0:19:10of Scarpetta and she is a crucial character, and she's gay.
0:19:10 > 0:19:11Yeah.
0:19:11 > 0:19:15And you are gay and I don't know whether you actually wanted to come
0:19:15 > 0:19:19out, but you did come out and it was quite a completed story
0:19:19 > 0:19:22because you had a love affair and it got into the media
0:19:22 > 0:19:24and it was all quite messy.
0:19:24 > 0:19:26Oh, I tended to make mistakes in really big ways,
0:19:26 > 0:19:28let's just put it that way!
0:19:28 > 0:19:31But you have talked about Ruth Graham, who was a great
0:19:31 > 0:19:34mental to you and she was obviously the wife of Billy Graham,
0:19:34 > 0:19:36the pastor, the Evangelist, an internationally known figure
0:19:37 > 0:19:38who was a Christian conservative.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41In some ways, you've been quite conservative in your life and yet
0:19:41 > 0:19:44you have made a point now of speaking out on gay marriage
0:19:44 > 0:19:46and other issues concerning the gay community.
0:19:46 > 0:19:52Have you left behind your conservatism?
0:19:52 > 0:19:53I was never conservative.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56I mean come as a kid I was conservative but only
0:19:56 > 0:19:58because I grew up...
0:19:58 > 0:20:01The first seven years in Miami and then North Carolina,
0:20:01 > 0:20:04a place I wouldn't go right now, hello, by the way...
0:20:04 > 0:20:07But anyway, in this little town where Billy Graham lives up
0:20:07 > 0:20:10on the top of the mountain, everything was Evangelist
0:20:10 > 0:20:12will Christian stuff, nobody had liquor in the town
0:20:12 > 0:20:15that they admitted to, nobody was gay, that they admitted to...
0:20:15 > 0:20:17So when you first realised you were gay...
0:20:17 > 0:20:25That was really bad.
0:20:25 > 0:20:26Were you battling with yourself?
0:20:26 > 0:20:26Oh!
0:20:26 > 0:20:29Listen, I'd never even heard of that when I was growing up.
0:20:29 > 0:20:31There were spinsters and roommates.
0:20:31 > 0:20:32I'd never heard of gay people.
0:20:32 > 0:20:36That you were drunk or a sinner or a paedophile, a child molester...
0:20:36 > 0:20:39But the gay stuff was not something that was common in the fabric
0:20:40 > 0:20:41of my little sheltered world.
0:20:41 > 0:20:45And never would I have thought that that would be what I would grow
0:20:45 > 0:20:47up to be.
0:20:47 > 0:20:49I mean, I didn't make the choice.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53Why would I want to do that and get criticised and pigs on?
0:20:53 > 0:20:55And you know something people don't know?
0:20:55 > 0:20:58And I'll tell you and I've never said this in public before...
0:20:58 > 0:21:01The truth of the matter is, when I got outed,
0:21:01 > 0:21:03which was when Vanity Fair did this really horrible story
0:21:03 > 0:21:06and there were things everywhere because some people just decided
0:21:06 > 0:21:10to do that because they were, it was just really to be cruel...
0:21:10 > 0:21:14When I knew this was all coming out and this was like in the mid-90s
0:21:14 > 0:21:17and I was devastated and frightened and I had never had my privacy
0:21:17 > 0:21:20exposed like this and I knew what this was going to mean
0:21:20 > 0:21:24to people, I picked up the phone, I called Ruth Graham and I said,
0:21:24 > 0:21:26Ruth, can I come and see you?
0:21:26 > 0:21:30Because there's something I have to tell you and I'm going to do
0:21:30 > 0:21:31it in person.
0:21:31 > 0:21:33She said "Sure, honey, come on up".
0:21:33 > 0:21:36So I got on my plane or my helicopter, I don't know
0:21:36 > 0:21:39what it was, but I flew to the mountains in North Carolina,
0:21:39 > 0:21:42I went up to her house, I sat down and I said,
0:21:42 > 0:21:46"You need to know that I'm gay and the reason I'm telling
0:21:46 > 0:21:48you is that you're going to hear about it anyway".
0:21:48 > 0:21:50So here's what she did.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53She said, "Oh, honey, I've no news since you were that big.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55I know that's not true about you.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59" And the fact of the matter is, she was always kind and loving
0:21:59 > 0:22:01when Stacey and I, Stacey met her before Ruth died,
0:22:01 > 0:22:03and she was always welcoming.
0:22:03 > 0:22:04Stacey is your partner.
0:22:04 > 0:22:05Yes.
0:22:05 > 0:22:08But Ruth, she did not judge me, she never brought it up,
0:22:08 > 0:22:12but even when Vanity Fair ask her about it, she's at the same
0:22:12 > 0:22:13thing, "I've known her since that..."
0:22:13 > 0:22:16She wouldn't go into it, she wouldn't accept it,
0:22:16 > 0:22:17in a way?
0:22:17 > 0:22:17Just denial.
0:22:17 > 0:22:18Yes.
0:22:18 > 0:22:19Did that hurt you?
0:22:19 > 0:22:20It hurt me terribly.
0:22:20 > 0:22:22It still hurts me.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25Because as much as I sing her praises and love her and I know
0:22:25 > 0:22:29that she was kind and she would never have like kicked us out
0:22:29 > 0:22:32of the house or done anything like that, I don't think
0:22:32 > 0:22:35she would have voted in our favour, based on that she just couldn't
0:22:35 > 0:22:36deal with it.
0:22:36 > 0:22:37It was too...
0:22:37 > 0:22:41It was too much against everything that she'd ever been taught
0:22:41 > 0:22:43and what she was surrounded by, what she lived with.
0:22:43 > 0:22:45It didn't compute to her.
0:22:45 > 0:22:47Because that story is quite a few years old now,
0:22:47 > 0:22:48we're talking the 1990s.
0:22:48 > 0:22:49Yes.
0:22:49 > 0:22:54But the last time I saw her was 2006 and I was up in the mountains,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57Stacey was there, we were in the bedroom talking and she couldn't
0:22:57 > 0:22:58have been kinder.
0:22:58 > 0:23:00But it's not something we could ever discuss.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02You have vanquished a lot of demons.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05But I'm getting the impression there are still some inside you?
0:23:05 > 0:23:08Oh, how can you not have demons in this life?
0:23:08 > 0:23:10There's so much to deal with, so much to overcome.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14And then just when you overcome some things, you start getting older
0:23:14 > 0:23:15and have to deal with everything else.
0:23:15 > 0:23:19You know, so life is a struggle and it's what we make of it.
0:23:19 > 0:23:23And as much as I'm so grateful to have the success that I have,
0:23:23 > 0:23:27I also want to feel like have made the world a better place and that
0:23:27 > 0:23:31I leave it a better place and that I'm honest while I'm here,
0:23:31 > 0:23:35even if it's hard, which is one of the reasons I want to do your
0:23:35 > 0:23:38show, because I like somebody who asks me the hard questions.
0:23:38 > 0:23:40We should all be giving hard answers too.
0:23:40 > 0:23:43This question of fear that sort of runs through the interview
0:23:43 > 0:23:46from the get go, from the beginning of your life,
0:23:46 > 0:23:47are you still fearful today?
0:23:47 > 0:23:48Of course.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51I'm fearful of failure, I'm fearful of death, you know?
0:23:51 > 0:23:52And loss and violence.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56I know way too much about everything bad that can happen to everybody.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59I know the liabilities of all things because I've seen so much.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02But the thing is, I get to produce something beautiful out of it.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06The art is fun and if I entertain people then I've taken something
0:24:06 > 0:24:09and actually created something really good out of something that
0:24:09 > 0:24:10maybe didn't start out so hot.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13Patricia Cornwell, that is a great place to end.
0:24:13 > 0:24:15Thank you so much for being on HARDTalk.
0:24:15 > 0:24:16Thank you very much.
0:24:16 > 0:24:18It was great to talk to you.
0:24:18 > 0:24:19Thank you.
0:24:41 > 0:24:42Hello.