Finding a New Writer

One reason why I am always picking up books is that I keep coming across references to books and authors I have not read. I rarely go by book reviews to help me choose my books but when I come across writers themselves who swear by books of other writers I buy them or keep looking for books by those writers. I discovered Elmore Leonard more or less in this manner after I read Stephen King wax lyrical about him is his book ‘On Writing.’ Last Sunday I found a reference to Derek Marlowe, a writer I had not heard of before.

Of the thirty writers featured in ‘London Walks’ that I had picked up last Sunday, I had read about or heard about only a few which goes to show how little I know about good writers. Margaret Drabble was a name I could recognize instantly and Philip Zeigler was another writer who appeared faintly familiar. But the rest of them were virtually unknown to me - Janet Street Porter, Graham Norton, Lucinda Lambton, Dan Cruickshank, Jon Ronson, Robin James, Kim Newman, Dr. Ruth Richardson, William Forrester, Robin Hunt, Margaret Forster, Peter Paphides, Kate Kellaway, James Miller, Pratibha Parmar, Ben Richards, John Vidal, Darcus Howe, Rick Jones, Yvonne Roberts, Liz Jensen, Martin Rowson, Thomas Pakenham, Dan Fielder, Irma Krutz, Joan Smith and Nicholas Royle are the rest of the names.

In fact I first read about Derek Marlowe in Nicholas Royle’s engaging essay ‘Do You Remember Derek Marlowe?’ in ‘London Walks.’ The essay is a delightful piece of writing describing the walk he undertook covering all the places where Marlowe lived in London. Royle drops a book of Marlowe at each of the addresses, a strange way of paying homage. He also writes about half a dozen second hand bookstores on this route- Books & Comic Exchange, Books for Cooks, Maggs Bros, Travel Bookshop etc.

Nicholas Royle, himself an author of five novels and more than a hundred short stories, described Marlowe as a’ classic prose stylist’, and as one whose books are now out of print. Derek Marlowe has written nine books and is also a script writer. Some of the well known books written by Derek Marlow include ‘A Dandy in Aspic’, ‘Do You Remember England’ and ‘Echoes of Celendine’ among others like ‘The Memoirs of a Venus Lackey’, ‘A Single Summer with LB’, ‘Somebody’s Sister’, ‘Nightshade’, ‘The Rich Boy from Chicago’ and ‘Nancy Astor’ which I remember seeing somewhere.

The next time I am out on my second hand book hunts it is Derek Marlowe that will be uppermost on my mind.