Patricia Cornwell on how writing helped her take back control of her life

The Shift with Sam Baker

Sam Baker Ltd

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.8 • 525 Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2023

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest this week is the crime writing legend, Patricia Cornwell. Patricia wrote her first novel about forensic pathologist kay scarpetta in 1990. Called Postmortem, it was such a hit it became the first book ever to win all four major crime awards on both sides of the Atlantic in the same year. (It also scared the bejesus out of me.) But Kay Scarpetta was more than a hit, she was a breakthrough. Because mad as it might sound now, if you were looking for a crime novel where the female characters were actually alive in the late 1980s, you weren’t exactly spoilt for choice. Now 39 books and 100 million copies later, Patricia’s 27th Kay Scarpetta novel, Unnatural Death, is about to hit bookshops and the one and only Jamie Lee Curtis is bringing her to our screens. Patricia zoomed from her home in Boston, where she lives with her wife Staci to talk about, well, everything. We ran the full gamut from gun crime and serial killers to how writing books enabled her to take back control after a difficult childhood, feeling like a failure and the danger of self-loathing. We also discussed how she narrowly escaped being a minister’s wife, marriage second time around and the enormous debt she owes Jamie Lee Curtis. If you loved this episode, you might also like my conversations with Val McDermid and Barbara Kingsolver. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Unnatural Death by Patricia Cornwell and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jamie Lang and Sophie Haboo have arrived on Disney Plus.
0:04.5	We're having a baby.
0:05.5	We're having a baby.
0:07.2	I've always wanted to be mom.
0:09.4	And we're bringing you on our journey through everything.
0:12.4	I have no idea what we're doing.
0:13.6	Thank you. I have more of an idea.
0:15.6	I think of it like a Tamagocchi.
0:17.8	At the end of all of this...
0:20.0	We're going to have a little baby.
0:21.8	Raising Chelsea, a Hulu original series streaming exclusively on Disney Plus.
0:27.3	18 plus subscription required T's and T supply.
0:35.7	Hello and welcome to The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds barred truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker.
0:47.0	My guest this week is the crime writing legend, Patricia Cornwall.
0:51.9	Patricia wrote her first novel about forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta in 1990.
0:58.1	Called Post Mortum, it was such a hit, it became the first book ever to win all four major
1:04.0	crime awards on both sides of the Atlantic in the same year.
1:08.2	It also, I've got to say, scared the bejesus out of me. But K. Skarpeta was more
1:14.4	than a hit. She was a breakthrough because mad as it might sound now, if you were looking for a crime
1:20.4	novel where the female characters were actually, you know, alive in the late 80s, you weren't
1:26.0	exactly spoilt for choice.
1:28.5	Now, 39 books and 100 million copies later,
	...

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