Cornwell, Patricia

▪ 1997

      U.S. crime novelist Patricia Cornwell signed a contract with G.P. Putnam's Sons in 1996 that would make her one of the most successful and well-paid women writers in the world. She was to receive $24 million for her next three books.

      Cornwell appeared to have gravitated to the sinister crime-mystery genre because her young life was ridden with feelings of darkness and uncertainty. Born on June 9, 1956, in Miami, Fla., Cornwell was deserted at age five by her father. Several years later, while residing in Montreat, N.C., Cornwell's depressed mother attempted to give her away to neighbours, missionaries Ruth and Billy Graham. Ruth placed Cornwell with another family of missionaries while her mother recovered from a nervous breakdown apparently triggered by lack of food, fuel, money, and clothes.

      These experiences left Cornwell battling for a sense of control. She attended Davidson (N.C.) College and, during her years there, fought anorexia nervosa and bulimia. She spent some time in a mental hospital that she said could have been the scene of any number of horrific novels. She graduated in 1979, married (1980) an English professor 17 years her senior, and began working at the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer.

      As a police reporter at the Observer, Cornwell dealt firsthand with crime, and she sought out experiences that would reveal its intricacies. She interviewed medical examiners, volunteered as a police officer, spent endless hours in the morgue's medical library, and took classes, such as forensic science, at the police academy. A job she took at the morgue allowed her to observe autopsies.

      In 1983 Cornwell wrote her first book, a biography of Ruth Graham. Having developed a "healthy respect for evil" while working for the Observer, she wanted her second novel to focus on crime.

      A self-proclaimed overachiever, Cornwell had a determination that brought her face-to-face with something worse than death: failure. She wrote three crime novels, and all were rejected. Depressed but not defeated, Cornwell solicited the advice of an editor who encouraged her to develop the character of Kay Scarpetta. Very much like Cornwell in appearance and ideology, Scarpetta had appeared in minor roles in the early, unsuccessful works. When Scarpetta took the lead role as medical examiner in Postmortem, Cornwell's writing career took off. Each year brought a new mystery for Scarpetta to solve, and each year fans clamoured for more.

      The best-selling author of seven novels, with an eighth book and a movie deal in the works, Cornwell employed a staff of eight and occupied a suite of offices. She surrounded herself with bodyguards, rented private jets and helicopters, and erected a shrine to herself filled with Scarpetta memorabilia: T-shirts, caps, and posters.

      (KATHERINE I. GORDON)

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