SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 // 9
Jance finds
unlikely
heroes in
her fiction
‘There are little pieces
of me in all my books’
By NANCY MCCARTHY
FOR COAST WEEKEND
W
hen author J.A. Jance discusses the
key characters in her mystery books,
they seem more like old friends than
personalities from her imagination.
She “met” retired Seattle police chief
J.P. Beaumont 30 years ago on a train to
Portland; they have the same birthday. Ari-
zona Sheriff Joanna Brady is short because
the 6-foot, 1-inch Jance wanted to know
what it was like to be short.
During a recent talk and book-signing
sponsored by the Cannon Beach Library,
Jance sat in an overstuffed chair on the
Coaster Theatre stage. She said her stories
often come from personal experience.
“There are little pieces of me in all of
my books,” she said.
Jance, 72, demonstrated her humor,
which could easily turn into a sharp retort
when fielding audience questions. She
laughed at her mistakes and became emo-
tional when she talked about her parents.
“Eighty-one years ago today, my parents
were married,” Jance said. They were
together 68 years and had seven children.
Her mother cooked three meals a day for
nine people, washed dishes, volunteered
with community organizations and kept an
organized house.
“She could have been a general,” said
Jance, who was the first member of the
family to earn a four-year college degree.
After her graduation, Jance admitted, she
became an “unbearable snob” toward her
mother, who had only a seventh-grade
education. She read a poem from her 1984
book of poetry, “After the Fire,” in which
she wrote, “It is impossible for me and my
PHOTO BY NANCY MCCARTHY
Author J.A. Jance
mother to be sisters.”
That attitude remained until, Jance ad-
mitted, she had children of her own.
‘I cried like hell’
When her mother died a few years
following her father’s death, Jance said she
shed no tears because she knew her parents
finally were reunited. But in her novel,
“Damage Control,” she wrote a scene where
an elderly couple drive off a cliff similar to
the death scene in the movie “Thelma and
Louise,” and the tears broke free.
“I cried like hell when I wrote that
scene,” Jance recalled.
She also included a scene in the book
involving a memorial for a fallen officer.
Jance said she wrote it in memory of her
brother, Jim, an Arizona firefighter, who
died unexpectedly of a heart attack several
years before her parents’ deaths.
Another personal experience, which
ended up in a J.P. Beaumont story, revolves
around guilt. She didn’t attend the funeral
of Doug Davis, a high school friend from
Bisbee, Arizona, because she didn’t know,
until after the funeral, of his death at age 22
while serving in Vietnam. Years later, after
meeting the woman who had been engaged
to Davis, Vance decided to write a Beau-
mont “prequel” — “Second Watch” — in
which Beaumont searches for his friend’s
missing fiancée.
“People who have read my book have
sought out the cemetery and left tokens of
appreciation on his grave,” Jance said. “Be-
ing a writer is a very good job sometimes.”
The popular writer is closely followed
by her fans, who remind her of mistakes or
ask about the well-being of her characters.
“When I had Beau do a lot of drinking so
he would have something to do with his
hands, readers would ask, ‘Does J.P. Beau-
mont have a drinking problem?’”
“The author was the last person to re-
alize it,” Jance said. In the next Beaumont
book, “Minor in Possession,” Beaumont
goes into treatment.
Imperfect art
To those who point out mistakes in
her 50-plus books, (she publishes at least
one a year; the newest Beaumont book is
out this month), she recalls the lesson she
learned from basket weavers on the Tohono
O’Odham Indian Reservation, where she
was a librarian. Mistakes, Jance said, “are
my contribution to making sure my art is
not perfect. Only the Great Spirit is per-
fect.”
While fielding questions from the au-
dience at the Coaster, Jance displayed her
humor, and a bit of impatience.
When a man asked her if she worked
from an outline, Jance told him that, in
her 30 years of doing book-signings, it’s
usually a male who asks that question, and
it’s usually a retired engineer. The question-
er admitted that he was a retired chemical
engineer.
Jance said she hated outlines. Instead,
she added, she starts with someone who is
dead, then she spends “a lot of time figuring
out who did it and how come. Occasionally,
I paint myself into a corner.”
The first 20 percent of the book is
difficult to write, the middle 60 percent is
somewhat easier, and the last 20 percent
is a “banana peel, and that’s when I know
where the end will be. That’s when I find
out what the end is,” Jance said. CW