'New Irish Writing was a phenomenon that changed the face of contemporary writing in Ireland and it came about because of David's courage and devotion." David Marcus, gentlemanly and self-effacing, was the most influential and innovative Irish literary editor of the 20th century. Marcus's most original idea came in 1968, when he established the New Irish Writing page in the Irish Press. This provided an outlet for new fiction and poetry that reached tens of thousands of readers.
Marcus published new writers as well as established ones. He relied on his own judgment, and was never afraid to take a gamble, as Ita Daly writes in this memoir: he had “a nose for literature, just as rare as a nose for wine: that’s what David had . . . Great editors instantly recognise the voice, even when it is struggling to emerge.” Because he had this nose, this gift, Marcus democratised – and, by the way, feminised – Irish literature.
Daly met Marcus when she submitted a story to New Irish Writing – which now appears in The Irish Times each month – in the early 1970s, and they married a year or two later. (She isn't specific about dates in this memoir.) She writes about their life together, from their first chat (about her short story), in a pub on Poolbeg Street, near the Irish Press offices, to the day of Marcus's death, 37 years after their marriage in 1972.
In I'll Drop You a Line Daly interweaves the story of her husband's professional experiences as an editor and publisher with personal stories: his life, the tale of the marriage, and her experience as a widow.
As well as providing an informative and much-needed history of Marcus’s life and career, the memoir is entertaining, often highly amusing, and profoundly thoughtful. “In this book I am trying to give a sense of David,” Daly writes, and she succeeds beautifully.
Set in his ways
We get to know Marcus as a person as well as a writer and editor. He was kind, he was organised, he was “set in his ways”. He could live very simply and was moderate in everything – even in betting on horses, which was, as well as short stories and music, one of his passions. Daly demonstrates how this gambling streak influenced the course of his life.
Although sensible and careful, Marcus had the courage to take major risks. For instance, he abandoned his initial career as a lawyer to devote himself to publishing literature. Much later he gave up his job at the Irish Press to write his own books.
As well as giving us a unique insight into Marcus’s character, Daly has written an equally brilliant portrayal of their long, rich and happy marriage. It had an unlikely start. Marcus was almost 20 years her senior. He was Jewish; she came from a conservative Catholic family. Her mother’s reaction to the news of their engagement was: “You can’t. He’s not baptised.”
Although Marcus was an atheist “he had been brought up in what resembled a ghetto”, Daly writes, referring to the tiny Jewish community in Cork. Two of his brothers “disowned him” when he married outside his religion. Daly’s family, although initially disapproving, accepted him soon enough.
Her account of the wedding in Rome is one of the book's hilarious scenes: "I had packed my wedding outfit, which, even considering the fashion vagaries of the day, now seems an eccentric choice. It consisted of a hand-crocheted lace blouse, an ankle-length báinín skirt, and a long hooded báinín cloak. I had bought the whole outfit in one of the small shops in Dawson Street that catered mainly for American tourists and I don't know whether I saw myself as some sort of Irish cailín or a walking advertisement for Bord Fáilte. "One way or another I was quite confident that I would be as bella a figura as ever tripped over the cobbles of St Peter's Square."
Daly’s distinctive voice is familiar to readers of her novels and short stories: she is always witty, incisive and relentlessly honest. Although the main impression one gets from this memoir is that she and Marcus had a loving and happy marriage, she is unsparing in her reflections on her own faults and, to a lesser extent, on his. The book is no hagiography. “One of my mother’s gloomy prophesies was that by marrying an older man I would be marrying someone set in his ways,” she writes. “Much as I hated to admit it I could soon see that this was true. Some of David’s foibles were hard to accept.”
Tamed by marriage
Daly is, I think, excessively hard on her own foibles: "I see an analogy between myself and Kate in The Taming of the Shrew. But although I do believe that marriage tamed me, I know that as a wife I have always been a bit of a shrew. These are the sort of regrets I have, remembering my sharp tongue that can wound without effort and that said things that cannot be unsaid."
The frankness of the book about these “regrets” is one of the qualities that makes it so special. Daly’s final chapter, in which she describes her reaction to her husband’s death, after a long, drawn-out illness during which she was by his side constantly, is disarmingly honest: “Immediately after David’s death I felt a huge relief. His sufferings were over and I didn’t have to worry about him any longer . . . When life returned to the quotidian, I don’t remember feeling anything much . . . I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t lonely. I was busy or happily idle.”
Daly’s grief exploded when, several months after Marcus’s death, their cat, Zena, died: “She had been part of a life that was over – a husband, a daughter, a cat. I cried until my body ached and I was hollowed out.”
Daly’s memoir is a thoughtful, honest and riveting memoir of a wonderful life. The final chapter is one of the best and most unusual accounts of grief that I have read, and will be a source of solace and interest to other bereaved people.
There is room for more books about David Marcus. A scholarly exploration of his role in the history of 20th-century Irish literature would be welcome, and I hope someone is writing it. But, for the moment, we should all be grateful to his gifted and loving wife for giving us this extraordinary book. I'll Drop You a Line is a fitting tribute to a great man, to whom Irish literature owes an enormous debt.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is a writer and critic
