Garry John Martin
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Garry John Martin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 March 1948 |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Emmanuel College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Partner | Sue Lewis-Blake |
| Website | garrymartin.org.uk |
Garry John Martin (born 1948 in Burton upon Trent) is a British novelist. He attended the local grammar school and art college and went on to read English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Biography
On graduation he was selected to take part in a BBC documentary charting the lives of graduates.[1][2] This was followed up a decade later in 1980 with a programme in which Martin discussed his novel To Weave a Rainbow, then under the working title Snake or Snapdragon.[3] By this time he had already worked in the City as a systems analyst and taken a year long trip halfway round the world by yacht (a journey he documented in a series of articles for Yachting and Boating Weekly) worked as a teacher at Brentwood School, Essex and at King Edward's School, Birmingham. At the time of the 1980 interview he was planning to open a restaurant, ‘Blythe’s’, in Coleshill.
In an interview given to the school magazine at King Edward's, Birmingham, Martin is asked, ‘Do you think of yourself as a teacher who writes or a writer who teaches?’ He replies, ‘A writer who teaches: I don’t think that the two are incompatible. If I’m actively involved in the craft of writing, what I learn is useful in my teaching.[4]
It was at King Edward’s that he found himself teaching Jonathan Coe, later to become an award winning novelist. Coe has commented, ‘I believe I was about seventeen years old when I first read The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. For this I have to thank my English teacher, Garry Martin. He was always a good judge of other people’s taste and I could see the gleam of satisfaction in his eye as, describing to me this strange eighteenth-century novel full of black pages and narrative non sequiturs, he saw my own eyes light up.’[5]
By the time To Weave a Rainbow was published (1986) he was running a bookshop as well as the restaurant while spending his free time writing.[6] This, his first novel was well received, ‘Garry Martin writes with a rare incisiveness, coupled with the ability to reflect the very ordinary happenings of day-to-day life with remarkably keen perception.’[6]
He then, having sold his two businesses, returned to full-time teaching/writing, taking up a post at Cranleigh School as writer-in-residence. According to Mike Smith, '. . . these were turbulent times for him, not only because he was undergoing a divorce, but also because he had accepted a request from a friend to help in a mission to Kurdish Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the first Gulf War. He narrowly escaped capture whilst he was there, but managed to file dispatches for the BBC World Service[7] and to write A Sane Asylum, a novel based on his journal of the trip.’[8]
On his return he moved to his final teaching post, at Nottingham High School. Here he focussed on Oxbridge entrance candidates and continued his writing. Robert Macfarlane, a pupil at this time, has commented, ‘Every so often you meet a teacher who changes your life as the adverts say. Garry Martin was that person for me.’[9]
A radio interview given in 2005 shows him as a teacher working on directing a school performance of Look Back in Anger.[10]
The school gave Martin extended leave to allow him to visit India to research a book on avatars. ‘In fact, he returned with the germ of a story to be called The Boy Who Made God Smile.’[11]
Martin's Orcadian Trilogy was launched in the Orkney Library and Archive in Kirkwall in 2019.
As a teacher Martin's former pupils include not only Jonathan Coe and Robert Macfarlane but also journalists Andrew Billen, Mark Steyn, Dave Haslam.[12] However teaching has never deflected him from his primary purpose, as is apparent from comments made recently to Alan Clifford: ‘I’ve always had a novel in progress,’[13] and to Amanda Penman: ‘I was once asked why I write and I simply replied “because I’m a writer.”’[14]
Novels and short stories
To Weave a Rainbow ISBN 0-947993-35-5
Like a Fat Gold Watch (Amazon Kindle)
Cling (Amazon Kindle)
Beneath Napoleon’s Hat volume 1: Eagles without a Cliff ISBN 978-0-9931892-4-1
Beneath Napoleon’s Hat volume 2: A Black Violet ISBN 978-0-9931892-5-8
Beneath Napoleon’s Hat volume 3: Sylvia Beach and the Melancholy Jesus ISBN 978-0-9931892-6-5
Patchwork ISBN 978-0-9931892-7-2
The Boy Who Made God Smile ISBN 978-0-9931892-9-6
A Sane Asylum ISBN 978-0-9955320-2-1
Of Love and Gravity ISBN 978-0-9955320-4-5
The Orcadian Trilogy ISBN 978-0-9955320-7-6
The Truants ISBN 978-1-9162715-2-4
Forthcoming publications
Spindrift
The Red Mountain
Song of the Mother
Plays
The Bar
Showing
Eating Seagull
Job with an Interpreter
Awards
The Boy Who Made God Smile, Writing East Midlands Mentoring Prize 2013.
References
- ^ 1. A Question of Degree-1.The Milk Round, Nigel Rees (BBC Radio 4, 21 September 1970) [radio interview]
- ^ 2. A Question of Degree-2.Excellent Prospects for the Right Applicant, Nigel Rees (BBC Radio 4, 22 September 1970) [radio interview]
- ^ 3. A Question of Degree-Retrospective, with Nigel Rees (BBC Radio 4, 21 September 1980) [radio interview]
- ^ 4. Chronicle, King Edward’s School, Birmingham, 1976-7, http://www.oldeds.kes.org.uk/download.php?file=TnpFPQ Accessed 25 November 2016
- ^ 5. Coe, Jonathan, ‘Laurence Sterne and B.S. Johnson’, in Marginal Notes, Doubtful Statements: Non-fiction, 1990-2013, Penguin Books, UK, 2013
- ^ a b 6. Browne, Howard, ‘Bookshelf’, Warwickshire and Worcestershire Life, September 1987, p68.
- ^ 8. Outlook, Barbara Myers (BBC World Service, 3 September 1991) [radio interview]. An interview on this subject was also given on, East is West, BBC Radio West Midlands, September 1991
- ^ 9. Smith, Mike, ‘A Literary Life Spiced with Adventure’, Derbyshire Life, February 2016, p63
- ^ 10. Robert Macfarlane (BBC Radio Nottingham, December 2003) [radio interview]. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/culture/2003/12/robert_macfarlane_first_book_award.shtml Accessed 25 November 2016
- ^ 11. (BBC Radio Nottingham, 1 December 2005) [radio interview]
- ^ 12. Smith, Mike, ‘A Literary Life Spiced with Adventure’, Derbyshire Life, February 2016, p63
- ^ 13. http://garrymartin.org.uk Accessed 25 November 2016.
- ^ 14. Alan Clifford (BBC Radio Nottingham, 19 October 2016) [radio interview].
- ^ 15. Penman. Amanda, ‘Writer’s Passion Speaks Volumes’, Artsbeat, March 2016, p21
External links
