It would be all but impossible to overstate what David Marcus accomplished on behalf of Irish writing, not least for the short story, which he championed in the weekly ‘New Irish Writing’ page of The Irish Press. For decades, ‘New Irish Writing’ provided Irish writers of all ages an opportunity to publish their work alongside established figures like William Trevor, Edna O’Brien, Benedict Kiely and John McGahern—figures whose New Yorker stories frequently had their second outing in The Irish Press.
That literary fiction could find a welcome home in a newspaper speaks to both David’s vision and its Irish readership, since a similar attempt by The Boston Globe to publish short stories was short-lived, and was prefaced with an advisory comment along the lines of Estimated reading time: four minutes and fifty-three seconds. The more than two-dozen short-story anthologies which David edited over the course of his lifetime were also hugely beneficial, given that a writer does not generally sit down to write a volume of short stories so much as see a collection gradually accrue.
A Cork Jew residing in Dublin, David was catholic with a lower-case C in his taste and in the informed literary agenda which underpinned his editorial work. What mattered most were the words on the page, and his precise, enthusiastic feedback when he liked those words was worth its weight in gold to the scores of writers whom he fostered.
My own treasured friendship with David commenced in February 1975 by way of a rejection slip for my first short story, which I had posted to The Irish Press from Glencolmcille, Co. Donegal, having arrived from my native Massachusetts the previous autumn. David added several handwritten lines, explaining how the story had failed to sufficiently catch his interest. David also informed me of the eponymous, Dublin-based poet and pianist Anthony Glavin—‘A young, regularly published poet. Could be complicating!’—who would also become a cherished friend.
My journal relates how I began to work on a new story, ‘Vanishing Boundaries’, for which I received an acceptance letter from David that spring. David also proposed that I debut in print as ‘Anthony M. Glavin’, employing my baptismal middle name of McInerney in honour of my mother’s maiden surname to distinguish myself from the eponymous poet.
The reception of my story in Glencolmcille would prove a story in itself, commencing with the parishioner who no longer chatted with me for fear I might put something he said into print. Another informed me how that first story had been fact, not fiction, though he’d read it twice: ‘Once before milking the cow, and again before going to bed.’ Yet another local remarked how I’d been ‘hard on the clergy and could get six months behind bars for that!’ For my part, I quickly learned to ask had they read a story, not whether they had liked it. Less inclined now to mention my own writing, I resolved to take on board Henri Matisse’s suggestion that those hoping to make art should cut off their tongues (if not literally). I was troubled, however, when told by one neighbour how another was now afraid to talk to me, for fear I might put something he said into the book I was supposedly writing. And I was slightly rattled by yet another who informed me: ‘You can take the next bus out of town if your next story’s not a good one.’
I recall responding on another occasion to David’s suggestion that I avoid a rhythmic repetition of words in another story with a tongue-in-cheek observation of how James Joyce had also favoured that sort of thing. ‘Yes,’ smiled David, ‘but he shouldn’t have always been allowed’—speaking as if Joyce might yet be within earshot of The Irish Press building beside the Liffey, and bringing home to me how a literary life such as David’s doesn’t necessarily distinguish between the work itself and the wider world, regardless of reputation or mortality.
His own editorial expertise was itself part and parcel of his character, reflecting the same generosity of spirit, quiet warmth, enthusiasm and positivity, together with a genuine smile. At the same time he never hesitated to tell you if he thought a story had not cleared the bar.
I passed back and forth across the Atlantic several times, from where I submitted stories, a handful of which were published in ‘New Irish Writing’. I also continued to correspond with David, who published my first story collection One For Sorrow in 1980 with Philip McDermott’s and his publishing house, Poolbeg Press. I was also to meet my beloved partner Adrienne Fleming that same year, who also worked with Poolbeg.
October 1986 found our family back in Donegal, where a letter arrived out of the blue from Tim Pat Coogan, editor of The Irish Press, asking me to come to Dublin as soon as possible, with all expenses paid, to meet with him and David. Our conversation at a corner table in Coffers Café proved like a scene out of a fantasy film, wherein I was offered the ‘New Irish Writing’ page on a six-month trial basis. David and I then shared a bottle of house wine with our lunch, the chat spectacular, and myself gainfully employed.
It took the better part of two months for the transition to take place, in which David continued to prove a star, nay a constellation, entirely willing to help me find my editorial feet via remote working (even though the phrase ‘remote working’ had yet to be coined). Our Donegal postman, Willie Maxwell, went from delivering the occasional letter from family and friends in the United States to knocking on our door throughout the week with yet another armload of A4 manilla envelopes. I greatly enjoyed the process of selecting stories, working with authors, and liaising with The Irish Press staff.
It is a truism that what we do, and how we get on in the world, stems from our character, but it seemed notably true with David whose editorial gifts—the insight, care and honesty he brought to your writing—were but part and parcel of his nature. Quiet, warm and old-world courteous, he had a lovely way of shutting his eyes as he smiled, and was without doubt among the last of our literary gents.
Which is to say, stories, be they short or long, mattered hugely to David. Writing to him from Massachusetts in 1994, where I had met the son of Irish novelist Vivian Connell, I got back a neatly typed aerogramme describing the huge impact that Connell’s The Chinese Room had afforded him at age nineteen, a novel that after it was banned in Ireland went on to sell over three million copies worldwide. And the joy it was to write to him once back in Dublin in 1997 with word of my first novel, Nighthawk Alley, as it was David who had wryly told me that a novel was where the money is! And yes, Nighthawk Alley was seeded by a story, ‘Transplants’, which David had published in ‘New Irish Writing’.
However, it was that conjurer of coincidence, W.G. Sebald, who bequeathed us both a pluperfect instance of those vanishing boundaries that can operate between a book and a life. On this occasion, Friday, 14 December 2001, I had posted David a copy of Sebald’s first novel, The Emigrants, only to receive another of his neatly typed letters, written the following Monday, which told of ‘What a morning it was: to read in The Irish Times of Sebald’s terrible death and then an hour later to get his book from you.’ It read entirely, never mind eerily, like something out Sebald’s fiction itself—another letter and memory to treasure, together with its sender: editor extraordinaire, generous mentor, dearest friend.
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This essay is included in the new anthology David Marcus: Editing Ireland edited by Paul Delaney and Deirdre Madden, which we launched this month and is available now in all good bookshops.
An event in celebration of David Marcus’s life and work will be held as part of this year’s Dublin Book Festival on Sunday November 10th at 3.30pm. More information here.
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