Entertainment For Lively Minds
Anyone indulged themselves in a bit of web stalking?
A recent sort-out chez ceepee unearthed a couple of books by Mark Blackaby, "Look what they've done the the blues" and "You'll never be here again". I remember enjoying them greatly when they came out (mid 90s) and have put them aside for a re-read just as soon as I clear the backlog (which, if you're interested, includes "Gig" by Simon Armitage, "The secret vanguard" by Michael Innes, the new Nick Cave and the first of that series by the scandi writer who died, something about dragon tattoos and hornets, I think.
Anyway, my curiosity was aroused so I Googled "Mark Blackaby" to see if he had written anything else and was surprised to find virtually no internet record of him at all, other than bibliographic listings of those two books. No biography, no website, no wikipedia entry. I admit to getting slightly obsessed at this point and spent a couple of hours going many pages deep in Google but to no avail. Unless he is now a roofing contractor or lawyer in the US, or wrote to Silentnight asking for mattress advice, he seems to have disappeared.
So, two questions - does anyone know of him or his work, and has anyone developed a similarly fruitless minor obsession?
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Well, this is one thread I can certainly contribute to...
...although I don't know what happened to him either.
I published Mark Blackaby's two books when I was Publishing Director at Victor Gollancz. 'You'll Never Be Here Again' deservedly won the Betty Trask prize (I was a judge that year, before I went to work at Gollancz). 'Look What They've Done to the Blues', another great book, came along a couple of years later...both got respectful reviews but didn't sell (par for the course, sadly).
And then, nothing. I can't remember ever hearing from him again, though that may be my unreliable memory. I remember Mark's disappointment that the books didn't make more of a splash, although like any sensible editor I'd spent some time preparing him for this eventuality. Gollancz was taken over by Orion, then some time after that I was made redundant (occupational hazard for editors) and now longer work in fiction publishing, so lost touch with Mark and a fair few others. Maybe he felt he'd run out of things to say, perhaps the need to make a living and feed children got in the way, perhaps he just couldn't find another publisher (he's not the only writer I published who never produced anything again after I got booted out of their lives!)
Who knows, perhaps this thread might reach him and let him know that someone out there still cares?
Incredible
should have known to try here first - the Word blog comes up trumps again. Thanks for replying. I was working in bookselling when the books came out and was recommended them by our fiction buyer who thought they would be my kind of thing - she wasn't wrong.
If anyone should know Mark, or if you come across this yourself, Mark, then be assured that you have, at least, one reader still. Perhaps not much comfort if the whole writing thing didn't work out as planned, but maybe better than nothing. I have decided to promote the two books to the top of the backlog pile and will re-read as soon as I've finished the current one (The Quiet Flame, by Phillip Kerr).
Susan Fassbender
Who, back in the day, had a minor hit with the wonderful Twilight Cafe. I would periodically pop her name into various search-engines and always came up with nowt. Then, a year or so back, there was a Wikipedia entry which I read eagerly. Sadly, it finished saying that she had passed away in the early 90's. Further digging showed that she had taken her own life.
These things don't always have happy endings.