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Tom Mallin
Born
Tom Mather Mallin

(1927-06-14)14 June 1927
West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England
Died21 December 1977(1977-12-21) (aged 50)
Clare, Suffolk, England
EducationBirmingham School of Art
Anglo-French Art Centre
Occupation(s)Playwright, novelist, artist
Spouse(s)Muriel Grace George, m. 1949
Children2 sons
AwardsGiles Cooper Award
Websitetmallin.blogspot.com

Tom Mallin (14 June 1927 – 21 December 1977)[1] was a British writer of novels and plays, and also an artist. Beginning his working life in the art world, as a picture restorer as well as a practising painter, illustrator, and sculptor, Mallin at the age of 43 became a full-time writer, with five novels published and several plays produced on stage and for BBC Radio before his death from cancer at the age of 50.

Biography

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Early years, family and education

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Tom Mather Mallin was born at West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England, to Clifford Vincent Mallin (1887–1932) and his wife Olive May née Mather (1895–1978).[1]

From 1943 to 1945 Mallin studied at Birmingham School of Art, going on to win a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools. However, but after doing National Service he decided to study at the international Anglo-French Art Centre in London, where he met his future wife Muriel Grace George (1925–2002).[2] He earned a living by finding employment as a Bond Street picture restorer, mainly of 17th- and 18th-century paintings, while also creating his own paintings, drawings, illustrations, prints and sculptures.[1][3] Mallin and Muriel George married in 1949, moved to Clare, Suffolk, in 1955, and had two sons, Simon and Rupert.[1]

Writing

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Mallin had his first play, Curtains, produced in 1968, and went on to write many more, for both stage and radio, having a six plays broadcast on BBC Radio before his death in 1977 and others posthumously.[4]

Turning to full-time writing in 1970, at the age of 43, he also had five novels published by Allison and Busby,[4] the book covers featuring his own artwork.

In a 1971 article in The Guardian, Michael McNay described Mallin's first novel, Dodecahedron (1970), as "shocking", and said: "Tom Mallin's prose bleeds. His plays and novels are the flayed flesh of English language. If there had to be a visual comparison (and why not? Mallin used to be a realist painter) it would be with a crucifixion by Grunewald or a film by Bunuel."[5] The novel was also published in the US, by Outerbridge and Lazard in 1972, to mixed reviews, with Kirkus Reviews noting that Dodecahedron owes a great deal to the playwriting genre.[6][7][8]

Mallin's last novel, Bedrok, published in 1978, was described by Hermione Lee in The Observer as "a stylish as well as a very troubling novel".[9] Two of Mallin's novels have been reprinted: Knut ("a darkly comic take on the gothic novel")[10] and Erowina ("A dark, ambitious, stimulating, and challenging novel ... Tom Mallin's masterpiece, and a work that remains surprising, fresh and vital").[11]

Awards and recognition

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In 1979, alongside John Arden, Richard Harris, Don Haworth, Jill Hyem, Jennifer Phillips and Fay Weldon, Mallin won a Giles Cooper Award, with his posthumous winning work being included in Best Radio Plays of 1978.[12]

Mallin was included in The Imagination on Trial: British and American writers discuss their working methods (Allison & Busby, 1982), co-edited by Alan Burns and Charles Sugnet, which contained interviews with 10 other authors as well as Burns himself: J. G. Ballard, Eva Figes, John Gardner, Wilson Harris, John Hawkes, B. S. Johnson, Michael Moorcock, Grace Paley, Ishmael Reed, and Alan Sillitoe.

Mallin is mentioned in Dennis O'Driscoll's poem "Siblings Revisited":

"Only a few years ago, it was Jennings schoolboy stories
that I brought you. Now, I pack avant-garde books:
Tom Mallin, Alan Burns, Beckett's Shorter Plays."[13]

Bibliography

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Novels

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  • Dodecahedron, Allison & Busby, 1970, ISBN 085031030X.
  • Knut, Allison & Busby, 1971, ISBN 0850310369; new edition, with an introduction by Rupert Mallin, Verbivoracious Press, 2014, ISBN 978-9810921651.
  • Erowina, Allison & Busby, 1972, ISBN 0850311314; new edition, illus., Verbivoracious Press, 2015, ISBN 978-9810944704.
  • Lobe, Allison & Busby, 1977, ISBN 0850312027.
  • Bedrok, Allison & Busby, 1978, ISBN 0850311314.

Selected plays

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  • Curtains, 1968 – Edinburgh Festival's Traverse Theatre, directed by Michael Rudman; Canonbury Theatre, London, 1970; produced for radio by Guy Vaeson; published by Calder & Boyars, Playscript 57, 1971, ISBN 978-0714507927
  • As Is Proper, 1971, King's Head Theatre, London
  • Cot, 1971, Edinburgh Fringe Festival
  • Downpour – broadcast 1971
  • The Novelist, 1971, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh; Hampstead Theatre Club
  • Mrs Argent, 1972, Soho Poly, London; BBC Radio 3, 1980
  • Rooms – broadcast 1973
  • Birds of Prey – (not produced), 1973
  • Two Gentlemen of Hadleigh Heath – broadcast 1973
  • The Lodger – broadcast 1974
  • Vicar Martin – broadcast 1974 (BBC Radio 3, 1976)
  • Whispers (not produced), 1974
  • Rowland, BBC Radio 4: The Monday Play, 4 July 1977, and BBC Radio 4: Afternoon Theatre, 27 August 1978
  • Spanish Fly – broadcast BBC Radio 3, 18 September 1977
  • Halt! Who Goes There?, 1977, broadcast posthumously, with Clive Swift, Rosemary Leach, 26 March 1978; winner of a 1978 Giles Cooper Award and published in Best Radio Plays of 1978 by Methuen, 1979[4]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "MALLIN, Tom". Suffolk Artists. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
  2. ^ "MALLIN, Muriel". Suffolk Artists. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  3. ^ Rushfield, Rebecca (23 August 2021). "Conservators who write fiction". The International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Work. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  4. ^ a b c Wortley, Richard. "Tom Mallin Radio Plays". Retrieved 28 December 2020.
  5. ^ "Curtains Up". The Guardian. 26 January 1971.
  6. ^ "Dodecahedron". Kirkus. 1 September 1972. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  7. ^ "New & Novel | Dodecahedron". The New York Times. 31 December 1972.
  8. ^ Scheper, George L. (4 February 1973). "A Dozen Steps to Golgotha [Review of Tom Mallin's novel Dodecahedron]". The Baltimore Sun. p. D5.
  9. ^ Lee, Hermione (16 July 1978). "World of the pigsty". The Observer. p. 26.
  10. ^ Knut Paperback. 24 November 2014. ASIN 9810921659.
  11. ^ "Erowina Paperback – Illustrated". 16 March 2015 – via Amazon.
  12. ^ "In brief". The Guardian. 7 June 1979. p. 9.
  13. ^ O'Driscoll, Dennis. "Siblings Revisited". Poetry Ireland Review (12). Poetry Ireland: 11. Retrieved 10 April 2024.
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