Monday, March 06, 2017

mosley dead? no, completely dead

If there's one thing that unites the octogenarian and nonagenarian novelists of the world, it's grasping Electric Halibut beseechingly by the trouser leg as he goes implacably about his business and asking WHEN, oh Lord, WHEN WILL THE KILLING STOP? Because, make no mistake, Electric Halibut's business is killing. He can't be bargained with, or reasoned with, and he absolutely will not stop, ever, until all novelists featured in this blog are dead.

The latest victim of the curse is Nicholas Mosley, whose novel Children Of Darkness And Light appeared here in September 2011. That was one of the later works of a career that spanned 60-odd years; nonetheless Mosley was still most famous for who his father was (and, to a lesser extent, who his half-brother is). At 93 he's the second-oldest entry in the list below after Doris Lessing.

Author Date of first book Date of death Age Curse length
Michael Dibdin 31st January 2007 30th March 2007 60 0y 59d
Beryl Bainbridge 14th May 2008 2nd July 2010 77 2y 50d
Russell Hoban 23rd August 2010 13th December 2011 86 1y 113d
Richard Matheson 7th September 2011 23rd June 2013 87 1y 291d
Elmore Leonard April 16th 2009 20th August 2013 87 4y 128d
Iain Banks 6th November 2006 9th June 2013 59 6y 218d
Doris Lessing 8th May 2007 17th November 2013 94 6y 196d
Gabriel García Márquez 10th July 2007 17th April 2014 87 6y 284d
Ruth Rendell 23rd December 2009 2nd May 2015 85 5y 132d
James Salter 4th February 2014 19th June 2015 90 1y 136d
Henning Mankell 6th May 2013 5th October 2015 67 2y 152d
Umberto Eco 30th June 2012 19th February 2016 84 3y 234d
Anita Brookner 15th July 2011 10th March 2016 87 4y 240d
William Trevor 29th May 2010 20th November 2016 88 6y 177d
John Berger 10th November 2009 2nd January 2017 90 7y 55d
Nicholas Mosley 24th September 2011 28th February 2017 93 5y 159d

Mosley's Guardian obituary provides another entry in the curious genre of obituaries written by someone who pre-deceased (by four years or so in this case) the obituary's subject.


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