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shewhomustThe unhappy thing that happened while we were away was that I learned of the death of Jan Mark. It came as a complete surprise to me, though that may just have been ignorance on my part - I'd actually taken her Useful Idiots with me as holiday reading; it's next on the pile.
She is usually described as a children's author, but many of her books should have made the crossover to an adult readership as well; she is seen as writing for adolescents because she wrote so well about adolescents - her dialogue is particularly joyful. Stratford Boys takes one particular adolescent, 16 year old Will Shakespeare, and tells how he came to write his first play: it is a comedy, and a genuinely funny one, but it is also an exploration of where writers get their ideas from, as young Will gradually tweaks his source material into shape.
But it's The Eclipse of the Century that makes me wonder why Jan Mark never became a superstar. It's an extraordinary book, both dark and brilliant, an entirely realistic fantasy, massive in its impact. Philip Pullman apparently called it his book of 1999, but it's more than that, it is, as the title suggests, one of the books of the century.
She is usually described as a children's author, but many of her books should have made the crossover to an adult readership as well; she is seen as writing for adolescents because she wrote so well about adolescents - her dialogue is particularly joyful. Stratford Boys takes one particular adolescent, 16 year old Will Shakespeare, and tells how he came to write his first play: it is a comedy, and a genuinely funny one, but it is also an exploration of where writers get their ideas from, as young Will gradually tweaks his source material into shape.
But it's The Eclipse of the Century that makes me wonder why Jan Mark never became a superstar. It's an extraordinary book, both dark and brilliant, an entirely realistic fantasy, massive in its impact. Philip Pullman apparently called it his book of 1999, but it's more than that, it is, as the title suggests, one of the books of the century.
