Christopher Fowler (1) (1953–2023)

Hmm, this is fine, but I wish it could've been actually good.
As the brief states, Fowler "profiles" 99 authors who have been quote-unquote forgotten, ranging from the deserved to the decidedly undeserved. In and of itself, that's a great idea, and this book certainly is a useful resource for those of us who live in the margins and niches of literary history. Fowler has dug into some unusual areas, especially in the short essays on broader themes that break up the biographical entries. So he can be acclaimed for that. At the same time, there are two grievances to note:

First - and Fowler is upfront about this - there's a heavy emphasis on the deservedly forgotten. Many of these writers are, as another reviewer has stated, "nutjobs" of various kinds. So this leans toward being an amusing insight into literary footnotes rather than a guide for even heavy-duty readers.

Second, by contrast, when Fowler does profile a worthy writer, his profiles are too short and frankly too vague to do much good. Like many readers, I jumped immediately to the authors I recognised, especially my beloved [a:Barbara Pym|104015|Barbara Pym|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1231080935p2/104015.jpg]. (Fowler seems to be stating not that she's forgotten now, but rather acknowledging the "wilderness years" of the 1960s and 1970s when she was so.) The two short pages allotted to Pym cover the absolute basics of her biography with barely a paragraph on her writing itself - he fails to track the distinct literary phases of her career, to provide any quotes from the text, to mention the thriving Pym culture of the last decade, to provide a single amusing anecdote about the author, or to elaborate on the humour, deft character touches and cultural references for which her fans hold her in high regard! Indeed, there's no evidence from this entry that Fowler has actually read a Pym novel. That in itself is not an offense - this isn't his PhD - but there is no attempt to provide reasons why readers should seek out Pym, or most of the other 98 authors profiled herein. This makes the book seem like rather a waste, from my vantage point. Adding another 2 pages to each entry, or even reducing the font, would have made all the difference. Every keen reader should have been able to pick 30 or 40 of these to add to their to-read list; instead, I suspect most keen readers will pick 4 or 5.

Ho hum.… (meer)