After a shadowy existence, Jim steps out into the glare!
Just before Christina James launches DI Tim Yates into another investigation in Sausage Hall, I managed to run her other half, Jim (aka Mr J), to ground and interrogate…sorry that should be interview… him on what it was like not only living with a crime writer but also editing her work.
How did you first meet?
We were students together at Leeds, following the same English course, and so we knew each other from lectures and seminars. Then some mutual friends, already an ‘item’, suggested we went as a couple with them to a hall of residence ball. Nothing, for the romantics reading this, came of it. However, two years later, we were both in Leeds during the vacation and I asked her to keep an eye on my car for a week, whilst I went rock climbing with a minibus group in Derbyshire. I took her for a…
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Christina James, crime novelist 
Loved this post ! Denis, aka The Tool Collector, read this with interest too and he seriously isn’t into blogs. I think it was the picture of Mr J that enticed him.
I’m so pleased that this reached Denis and I’ll certainly let Jim know. I must admit, it has made me reflect on quite a lot of things across many years. Jim has very much preferred to remain behind the scenes, but he has been quite touched by the interest generated by the three posts he’s been responsible for on this site. He sends, as I do, his great good wishes to you both. 🙂
And ours to you. I re read the post with the butterfly in Auschwitz and was still moved. We turned down the – i hesitate to write opportunity- possibility of visiting for similar reasons to those Jim describes, but i wonder if after all we shouldnt have gone. We went once to a camp in France when the children were quite small and of course the memory of that is vivid. A monument, an obelisque, quite plain and stark, wailed in the wind. It reminded me of something from St Exupery, Night Flights. When the engine cuts out there is a sound , not a wail, not a cry, but the purest ever sound of despair.
Wow.
Great perspective. He doesn’t mention any of the “real” issues of living with a writer, either! Very gracious.
(What did you do with my ….! It was right here Tuesday, or Tuesday last. my favorite: I can’t go/do this thing/meet you here because I’m writing. I know it looks like I’m staring aimlessly out the window but im writing, dammit. Then, there is the wandering of the house and grounds muttering to ourselves. Colleen loves that one.).
Lucky you to have an in-house editor, with bees!
Thanks, Jack! Yes, I must admit I was astonished to find only ‘Bloody authors’ and a very delicate reference to ‘inroads’ into patience! Mind you, he does a good line in understatement! I know when I’ve overstepped, because the house falls silent! (Something calming about watching bees, he says.) 😉
Fascinating perspective on what it is like to be the other half of a writer. I wonder if you have started a trend? Would make a great series.
Elaine has begun to do that. I think her first was Mari Hannah. Personally, when I found out it was happening, I feared the outcome! I think I got off lightly! 😉
I’ve just read this on Elaine’s blog and have told her how much I enjoyed this idea she’s started of interviewing ‘the other half’, and I enjoyed this one even more than the first. It’s so nice to have Jim, whose presence I’ve long felt in your blogs, travels and photos, come out and come alive!
Steady! Don’t encourage him! I’ll never get him back in the bottle at this rate! 🙂