Sunday

Oct. 28, 2012


An Easy-Going Weekend

by Gerald Locklin

With my wife and daughter away at
My daughter's college for four days,
It has been a bachelor's weekend
For my fifteen-year old son and me.
We get along easily because we
Like a number of the
Same few basic things: eating,
Reading, writing, music. his social
Life is different from my current
One: he visits with his friends,
Girls and boys, while I swim at
The YMCA pool. Then he watched
Videos—a compromise between
The ones that he picks out—
Empire Records, Strange Brew—
And the ones I think he ought to
Be exposed to—Citizen Kane,
La Strada, Dr. Strangelove. He
Plays his amplified guitar; I switch
A game on when the Yankees are
At bat. I give him In Our Time
To read; finish up a Flann
O'Brien for my class. We both
Like Italian one day, Mexican the
Next. He feeds the cats and does
The dishes for his mother.
At night, he works late on
A story at the MAC; I write
A poem with a pad and pencil.
I exercise the dog and feed it.
I go to bed before he does.
We both say, "love you; see
You in the morning." And
We mean it

"An Easy-Going Weekend" by Gerald Locklin, from New and Selected Poems. © World Parade Books, 2008. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

It's the birthday of convicted murderer and best-selling detective novelist Anne Perry (books by this author), born Juliet Hulme in London (1938). She had tuberculosis, and her doctor said she wouldn't survive another winter in England, so she was sent away to live in the Bahamas, and then South Africa. She rejoined her family when she was 13, after her father — a well-known physicist — got a job as a president of a university in Christchurch, New Zealand. She became close friends with a classmate, Pauline Parker, who also struggled with health issues. When Juliet was confined to a sanatorium for several months, she exchanged daily letters with Pauline. They created an elaborate fantasy world together; they were both working on novels, which they were convinced were brilliant. They planned to run away to New York together, find publishers for their novels, and then make them into Hollywood movies — they would be actresses and they would handpick famous actors to star in their films.

Then Juliet's parents decided to leave the country and take their daughter to South Africa. The two girls were absolutely devastated and begged for Pauline to move to South Africa too. Juliet's parents thought the girls needed to be separated, but they said all right, as long as it was OK with the Parkers — knowing full well they would never consent. Sure enough, Pauline Parker's mother refused. The teenage girls decided that Pauline's mother was the only thing ruining their lives, and that the only way to solve everything would be to kill her. So they did, inviting her to go on a walk in the park and then bashing her head with a brick tied in a stocking. When the girls returned to the teahouse where they had eaten lunch, they were covered in blood, and quickly arrested. Juliet was 15 years old, and Pauline 16.

The brutal murder shocked the country, and the two girls were given a high-profile trial. The prosecution read extracts of Pauline's diary, in which the girls coldly planned the murder. They were each sentenced to an indefinite prison sentence, and were released separately about five years later under the condition they never contact each other.

The girl who had been Juliet Hulme changed her name to Anne Perry. She converted to Mormonism, and settled in a remote Scottish village with her mother. In 1978, she published a murder mystery called The Cater Street Hangman, set in Victorian England. She expanded the book into a series, and then wrote another detective series. For decades, no one knew that Anne Perry and Juliet Hulme were one in the same. Then, in 1994, the Parker-Hulme murder case became the inspiration for the film Heavenly Creatures, starring Kate Winslet as Juliet. A reporter was writing a story about the film and discovered that not only was Juliet Hulme still alive, she was a best-selling, world-famous writer named Anne Perry. She writes for 12 hours a day, and she has written more than 50 novels, which have sold more than 25 million copies.

Perry said of her writing: "It is vital for me to go on exploring moral matters."

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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