The book West published in 2010 by Atlantic Books is subtitled A Journey Through the Landscapes of Loss, and its premise is the “triad of tragedy” which the reader is told occurred to its author, Jim Perrin:
- The suicide of his 24-year-old son Will, a talented climber
- The death from cancer of his then partner Jacquetta (Jac)
- His own diagnosis of terminal lung cancer
Perrin’s writing about Will has touching and credible qualities, although descriptions of his early childhood do not, apparently, measure up to reality; nevertheless there can be no doubting the shock and tragedy in the life of the author that this son’s death created.
Jacquetta is claimed by Perrin to have been his ‘wife’, the ‘love of his life’, his partner in a 40-year affair, albeit with a 28-year hiatus in it. This and many of the qualities, behaviours and actions attributed to Jac are complete falsehoods, as her sisters can show. Her character as portrayed in the book is mythologized to suit the author’s ends. Her loved ones are viciously calumnized in what seems to be a familiar Perrin technique, which generally stops just short of outright libel, although this writer believes that mark has been overstepped in the book. Their relationship was less than happy and was frequently fraudulent, abusive and exploitative on Perrin’s part, and was able to be further exploited in his writing (as he mistakenly believed) only because of her death.
Perrin’s reported diagnosis of his own lung cancer is a further falsehood, described in carefully evasive terms which leave him a ‘way out’ of the claim, and his ‘cancer’ is not in evidence today.
The heart of this site is Jac’s Sisters’ Blog. For anyone, like this writer, with a child-like detestation of unfairness, to read it is to shed tears of both sympathy and anger. It was started in 2010 when they first learned of the publication of West and found themselves, as web neophytes, unable to counter the individual and corporate forces against them, as they sought to correct the lies and defamation in the book, and in anonymous online ‘review’ postings and comments. Jac’s Sisters have attempted to interest the press, online booksellers, academia, the literary establishment and anyone else who might listen, in the morass of lies, self-aggrandisement, defamation and probable libel contained in West, and in the multiple and continuing pseudonymous web postings made, they believe, by Jim Perrin. That those responsible for widely-read retail and review websites should permit this anonymous activity, and should ignore and (probably at Perrin’s instigation) delete the posts of a justly aggrieved family publicly identifying themselves, is a travesty of which they should be abjectly ashamed.
Were Jac’s treatment, West and Perrin’s transparent and ridiculous online antics the sum total of his offences, anyone (not knowing them, that is) might have expected Jac’s Sisters to give up against the closed ranks of the literary establishment, gullible or uncaring commercial website operators, and indifference or worse on the part of certain prominent journalists — and some newspapers of which we expect better. However, since they started their Blog they have learned that Jac was not alone in her suffering from the attentions of Jim Perrin.
Jac’s Sisters are not professional writers, nor are they skilled in website construction. As a result their Blog has suffered from a linear and unstructured presentation which, as it grew, made it difficult to navigate and appreciate, and they became concerned that this might cause inconvenience to their many readers.
Further, it was hosted by the excellent wordpress.com themselves. It is more than likely that WordPress have been approached by Jim Perrin in an attempt to suppress it, and to their great credit they have not done so. But they are an American enterprise with all that means for aversion to litigation, and it is possible that a threat of the same might have closed the Blog down.
But now it’s Jac’s Sisters and their Friends. This new site presents the entire — and continuing — Blog with all the posts categorized (on the right) for easy retrieval, not least by the individuals or bodies who might want to reconsider their association with Jim Perrin; but also according to the various behaviours Perrin exhibits and the known falsehoods he perpetrates, some now being carefully examined. I urge you to read it for its warm and passionate recollection and defence of someone now beyond defending herself, and for its ice-cold determination — as Jac’s Sisters say themselves — to “set the record straight.”
All statements on this website are either:
- Supported by documentary proof,
- Supported by credible testimony, or
- Opinion reasonably held, given the evidence
A friend of Jac’s Sisters,
who are: Elisabeth Simpson, Caroline Hardaker and Alex Richardson