Peter James the man is almost as fascinating as the fiction he so lovingly creates. His first job was at the age of sixteen where he worked as assistant on the Brighton Evening Argus, interviewing Hayley Mills and Roy Boulting on the preview of In Search of the Castaways. From there he did a stint as Orson Welles' cleaner at his London home where he received the grand total of ten shillings a day! His first published piece was a news cutting sent to Private Eye magazine. The subject: US inventor, Reuben Tice who was killed when a device he'd invented for de-wrinkling prunes exploded!
After this auspicious start, James moved into TV. In 1970 he began writing
a 1/2 hour Canadian programme for pre-schoolers called Polka Dot Door
(still running). From there he moved into writing science programmes, with
a bias towards computing and space exploration. He then started his own film
company, Quadrant films, which became Canada's largest independent feature
film company during the 70s. James was also involved in the writing, producing,
financing and distribution of films like Children Shouldn't Play With Dead
Things, Dead of Night, Blue Blood (starring Oliver Reed)
and had investments in Under Milk-Wood (starring Richard Burton and
Elizabeth Taylor) and David Cronenberg's Shivers. 
He also co-founded Pavilion Internet plc in 1982, one of the first email and Internet providers.
James then turned his attention to writing horror novels. These have combined
his love of science, medicine and the paranormal, resulting in fascinating
books like Twilight, which examines life-after-death scenarios and
out-of-body experiences; Host: cryonics and the possibility that one
day we might be able to download human consciousness into a computer; and
Alchemist: fertility drugs and satanic pharmaceutical companies. His
latest book, Denial, which is being marketed as a thriller, is the
story of what happens when ageing film star, Gloria Lamark suddenly takes
her own life. Her son, Thomas, decides that Doctor Michael Tennent is to blame,
and that he and anyone close to him should suffer to make amends ... with
predictably tragic consequences. 
MW: Are you still happy to be called a horror novelist, and will he
continue to write about supernatural concepts?
PJ: I've never really been happy with the sobriquet 'horror' novelist. I think it is dangerous and restricting to pigeonhole any writer. I'm a novelist, and I have written novels which fit into the broad band of 'horror', but when asked how I describe my novels I say that I write thrillers which reflect my interests in science, medicine, technology and the paranormal. Not that I'm comparing myself with him, but how would Dickens be described today? 'Social commentator' novelist? 'Comic' novelist? 'Horror' novelist? 'Saga' novelist? In reality he was all of these and more, but we think of him as just a 'novelist'. In a way, when we assign labels, we diminish writers.
MW: As in all your novels, Denial contains references to items of clothing and jewellery. The prologue, for instance, mentions Thomas Lamark's watch, clothing, slippers. And there are plenty of other sartorial references throughout the novel (used to chilling effect when Thomas, about to torture a female prisoner, asks repeatedly, 'Do you like my clothes?').
PJ: Didn't Einstein say that 'Heaven was in the details'? I'm a strong believer in detail - but only when appropriate. I do think clothes tell a huge amount about people. Thomas Lamark is an exception, because he is totally obsessed and after his mother's death becomes sartorially liberated.
MW: I noticed plenty of hip references in Denial: to surfing the Net, email, TV programmes like Casualty, Cracker and London's Burning. Is it your intention to reflect the world around you?; and by so doing, getting readers to identify with the characters they're reading about?
PJ: I think that in trying to write scary fiction, the more real I can make the world my characters inhabit, the more frightening the scares will be. Part of what I try to do is prevent the reader from being able to say, 'This is OK, this is not my world, this is not real,' - which is the escape route we often turn to when confronted by something truly frightening.
MW: Obsession is a prevalent theme throughout Denial, especially Thomas' obsession with avenging his mother's death. I like the line at the beginning of the book where Thomas' feelings for Gloria are summed up with '...she was the state of grace to which his existence was rooted.' Straightaway the reader is made aware that without his mother, Thomas exists only as a tool for revenge. He coolly, coldly acknowledges his inadequacies - the fact that he's different and can't control his methods ('All my life people have told me I'm not right in the head. I have to accept that. I really hate being this way, but I can't fight it') - which makes him quite pitiable; a monster, but still human.
PJ: I'm very delighted you picked up on this, because I think it's one of the most important things when writing about evil characters, to try to show their human side. It is vital in fiction to care about all your characters, even the most monstrous ones, because it makes them more complex, more interesting and ultimately, more believable. I always remember the very poignant line in Frankenstein when the monster says to his creator, 'I didn't want to be like this - you made me like this.'
MW: As in previous novels, the main female character, Amanda, is strong, independent and capable. All your books have utilised non-stereotypical female characters. What has the response been like from female readers, and how important is it that female readers identify with the characters like Amanda?
PJ: I get terrific correspondence from female readers, much of it
saying that I make my females very real and believable. I do work very hard
at these characters and have three women readers whose judgement I trust,
who read all my work at draft state to try to guide me on the female characters.
I get a great amount of satisfaction when I'm told that a character has really
'come off the page' and to life. 
MW: Several themes in Denial are reminiscent of those found in previous novels. For instance, Denial's developing relationship between Amanda and Michael (who's a decade older) reminded me of the relationship between Alchemist's Montana Bannerman and Conor Molloy: younger girl and older, more sophisticated guy.
PJ: Not intended! In fact it hadn't occurred to me. Now I'm thinking about it, I can see what you mean. Maybe I'm subconsciously influenced by my parents - my father was 30 when he married my mother, who was 20! Dr Freud, where are you?
MW: Herman Dortmund's prediction of the tragic events that eventually befall Michael and those he loves is comparable to a scene in an earlier novel, Prophecy, where the heroine Frannie Monsanto shares a birthday meal with her workmate, Penrose Spode whose forbidding prophecy bodes ominously for her future. Do you believe in psychic power?
PJ: Yes. I believe that people have psychic abilities - all of us
have them but only some know how to access them. I use my writing in many
ways to explore my own thoughts about life and the human mind and the cosmos
in which we exist, and psychics are very much part of our world, in almost
every culture on this planet. I make a big effort to be different with every
book, but I forget some things that I've written and I guess it is inevitable
that there will be repetitions at times of themes, ideas or devices - particularly
those that I felt worked well and have probably got lodged deep into my subconscious!
MW: I was especially struck by an entry in Thomas' diary: 'The thing about this electronic world is that it creates new reality ... Our biological bodies, these days, are merely hard copies of (these) electronic records. We are moving from the era of Biological Man into a new era of Digital man.' This is almost the realm of science fiction: the ability to make hard copies of ourselves using electronic data. In Host you suggest that one day a human being might one day be able to download his consciousness into a computer. As we move into the next century, do you harbour any doubts or misgivings about the power scientists have at their disposal?
PJ: On the whole, I think scientists are a benign and very responsible group of society, and this applies throughout the world. It is their masters who worry me: the politicians, the captains of pharmaceutical giants, the people who see potential in science for power and profit - they worry me hugely. All kinds of possibilities are opening up, from cloning, to the creation of true cyborgs, to immortality, quite apart from all kinds of new ways of killing. There was a very sinister development just recently - the leaking to the press that the Israeli's are working on a germ warfare bacteria that would only attack people with Arab genes. Now that is seriously scary!
MW: Your novels usually include at least one nauseating scene. In Denial there are two! A hideous tooth-pulling scene; and a chapter which sees Thomas slice his schoolmate's eyeball with a knife. How hard is it to write a scene like this without going over-the-top? The hot poker scene that opens Prophecy, for instance, is memorably disgusting. What role do shock tactics have in your writing? Where do you draw the line between grossing-out the reader and just making him wince?
PJ: To make any truly horrific scene work, it is vital to get much of the scene to play out in the reader's imagination, rather than on the printed page. Less is more is a dictum that I try to apply all the time, in harness with a 'need to know'. What I mean by this is that I describe in general the minimum I think a reader needs to read to get a major shock. The hot poker scene in Prophecy has aroused much controversy. I stand by it, because firstly, it is historically accurate - thousands of people, before and after the luckless Edward II met their deaths this way, and secondly, it was essential to set up the fact that a truly evil deed had taken place down in that cellar.
MW: I loved the irony in the title: that to deny something is to avoid the truth (James' last novel was called The Truth). Both Michael and Thomas are in denial - Michael trying to deny the fact that he wasn't responsible for Gloria's suicide; and Thomas' internal debate over the rights and wrongs of his subsequent revenge. Then, in the epilogue, the reader learns the truth, a stunning revelation which changes the relevance of everything that's gone before. Knowing irony on your part?
PJ: Yes! And interestingly it is probably the only novel I've written
where I knew the ending before I'd written the first word, and didn't change
it in any way!
The Truth is out now in paperback, and tells the story of happily married
couple, Susan and John, whose financial downturn forces them to consider an
unusual proposition from wealthy Swiss banker, Emil Sarotzini: That Susan
become the surrogate mother of his child. But this is a horror novel, and
by agreeing to his terms things can only go from bad to worse...
MW: I was particularly struck by the homage The Truth pays to Rosemary's Baby. Chapter 24, for example, brought to mind the 'nightmare conception' scene in the book/movie. At various times during the book/movie the main character, Susan is told that she looks like death; her doctor is anything but what he appears to be; and people who get too close to what they perceive to be the truth are usually finished off in a particularly gruesome manner.
PJ: Rosemary's Baby is one of the most perfect novels I've ever read, and I very much wanted to try to write a 'Rosemary's Baby for the 90s'. Essentially The Truth is very different, but I was very definitely influenced by Rosemary's Baby in the writing of it.
MW: The pregnancy issue features strongly in The Truth which brings to mind the previous novel, Alchemist, itself dealing with the misuse of fertility drugs.
PJ: I'm fascinated by the whole infertility thing because, in part, I've had direct experience - my wife and I went through eight years of infertility treatment, which was total hell. One in six couples have infertility problems, and very often those that overcome these problems and go on to conceive, end up with whole different sets of problems. Fertility is a huge issue - it involves tampering with nature on a major scale, tampering with the balance of nature. In many ways the ultimate power - the power over human life.
MW: As in Denial, there are a number of issues examined in The Truth which you have touched on to some extent or other before. A prominent theme - which might be applied to several previous books - is the corruption of power. The Truth explores another big, faceless, something-not-quite-right-about-it organisation (see Bendix Schere in Alchemist), only this time its name is the Vorn Bank. And they're making an offer too good to be true. Have my child and all your worries will be over. Only you just know that's not going to be the case ... because, like Daniel Judd in Alchemist, Emil Sarotzini is about as benevolent as a yawning crocodile.
PJ: I think the whole of human civilisation has been dominated by faceless and sinister organisations, starting with the formation of organised religion, particularly the Roman Catholic Church which wreaked terrible evil on non-conformers for many centuries. Now with the power of the church and of politicians diminished, power is moving into the hands of companies. Banks and pharmaceutical companies control huge aspects of our lives. In a free country such as devolved England, we have such power of press freedom and public accountability by politicians that we don't at the present moment have to fear a despotic dictator. Instead we should be very afraid of the insidiously increasing power of technology in the hands of large corporations, who are more and more using that power to know us and control us and manipulate us.
MW: It makes a change to see a villain who reads philosophy and poetry! Like Thomas in Denial (who is also extremely intelligent as well as being obsessed with Amanda), Kundz has his saving grace - his obsessive and misplaced love for Susan. Even baddies must have an Achilles heel and she is his. Is this an attempt to paint the bad guy in colours other than purely black?
PJ: I was taught very early in my writing career that if a reader likes a villain, or at least can understand where the villain is coming from and get inside his or her head, the story will be all the more powerful. If you look at Frankenstein where the monster tells Dr Frankenstein that he did not want to be like this, you realise that you do care deeply for the monster. Same applies with Dracula, who you have to like however much you fear him ... and again with Hannibal Lecter. The more charming a villain, the more sinister, I think.
MW: Your books all feature aristocracy, the upper-classes; dinner parties, ballrooms, professional and wealthy people. Personally I like to read about people and backgrounds of which I have little experience as they take me into social circles where I'd never normally have the opportunity to venture. What have readers' reactions been like over the years?
PJ: I've always concentrated my writing on subjects that interest me and on characters that I'm intrigued by. I also try to write escapism, at one level, and I find that successful movers and shakers interest me more than any other strata and make good fodder. I've done a huge variety of jobs in my life, from working as a house cleaner, a cab driver to producing films and running businesses and my friendships are very broad based as is, I hope, my depth of knowledge and understanding of people. In general my books revolve around science, technology, medicine and the paranormal, and I guess most of the principal characters therefore have to be professional people, which necessitates the books being set at a certain social level.
MW: If I've got one criticism of The Truth it's the fact that it tends to peter out towards the end. It seems to be building towards something catastrophic which never actually happens. Does this mean there's a sequel in-the-making?
PJ: I'm sorry you feel that way - I do try very hard on the endings and I think in Denial I have made a much stronger climax. I didn't plan for sequel for The Truth - it's just that I have a pathological dislike of endings that are too pat, too neat and tidy, and of course, where good always triumphs. In real life good does not always triumph, so why should it in fiction!
MW: Both Host and Alchemist have recently been turned into TV films. How did these adaptations come about? Are you happy with them? What about the ITV's Chiller adaptation of Prophecy?
PJ: Host was put together by my US agents, CAA. I ended up
in the strange position of having to chose between the book being made as
a movie or a television miniseries - William Friedkin who directed The
Exorcist, and a great hero of mine, very badly wanted to make the film
and we had simultaneous offers from him and from ABC Television. My US publishers
felt that a miniseries would be better for book sales and my agents felt that
if ABC bought it for television it would have a far better chance of actually
being made than if the film rights were sold. Less than one in ten books sold
for film rights ever actually get made, but the ratio is closer to 50% for
television. Alchemist was made by Red Rooster - my UK agent sent them
the novel and they bought it and went into development straightaway. It was
good to work with an English company and they have done a terrific job - I'm
very pleased with the finished film. 
I think Stephen Gallagher did a terrific job on the screen adaptation of Prophecy and it was a great shame that Yorkshire constrained him on time to a one-hour slot. I think Prophecy and the entire Chiller series suffered from a ludicrous time constraint. In horror you need time to build up suspense and one hour is not enough. Host is three hours and Alchemist four hours - much better.
MW: Will the next novel contain any paranormal aspects? Or will it be another thriller?
PJ: The working title is Faith, but I'm very seriously thinking of changing it to a longer title. I'm getting tired of one word titles - I think they've been done to death. Also there are always problems - for instance, two different Denial titles appeared at the same time. Similarly Possession, Dreamer, Sweet Heart and Twilight have all been other book titles as well. Faith will have no supernatural in it. It is a thriller in which conventional medicine is pitted against natural medicine. The wife of an eminent plastic surgeon becomes seriously ill. Rejecting conventional medicine she turns to an alternative doctor and falls in love with him. Her control freak husband cannot bear the thought that not only is he losing his wife to another man, he is losing her to a medicine discipline he totally despises. Having recently changed the identity of a well known Mafia leader, he now calls in a favour from the man, requesting a hit man to kill his wife's lover. The story develops from there...
Originally appeared in Prism, the British Fantasy Society Newsletter, May/June 1999, Vol. 23 #3
