Malcolm Lowry Popular Books

Malcolm Lowry Biography & Facts

Clarence Malcolm Lowry (; 28 July 1909 – 26 June 1957) was an English poet and novelist who is best known for his 1947 novel Under the Volcano, which was voted No. 11 in the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list. Biography Early years in England Lowry was born in New Brighton, Wirral, the fourth son of Evelyn Boden and Arthur Lowry, a cotton broker with roots in Cumberland. In 1912, the family moved to Caldy, on another part of the Wirral peninsula. Their home was a mock Tudor estate on two acres with a tennis court, small golf course and a maid, a cook and a nanny. Lowry was said to have felt neglected by his mother, and was closest to his brother. He began drinking alcohol at the age of 14. In his teens Lowry was a boarder at The Leys School in Cambridge, the school made famous by the novel Goodbye, Mr. Chips. At age 15, he won the junior golf championship at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake. His father expected him to go to Cambridge and enter the family business, but Malcolm wanted to experience the world and convinced his father to let him work as a deckhand on a tramp steamer to the Far East. In May 1927, his parents drove him to the Liverpool waterfront and, while the local press watched, waved goodbye as he set sail on the freighter S.S. Pyrrhus. The five months at sea gave him stories to incorporate into his first novel, Ultramarine. After returning to Britain Lowry enrolled at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, in autumn 1929, in an attempt to placate his parents. He spent little time at the university, however, and his penchant for drink was already apparent; Hugh Sykes Davies, one of Lowry's academic supervisors and later a friend, found that the only place in which it was possible to teach him was in a pub. Nonetheless, he excelled in writing, graduating in 1932 with a third-class honours degree in English upon submitting several extracts of his first draft of Ultramarine for examination. During his first term, his roommate, Paul Fitte, killed himself. Fitte had wanted a homosexual relationship, which Lowry refused. Lowry felt responsible for his death and was haunted by it for the rest of his life. Lowry was already well travelled; besides his sailing experience, between terms he made visits to America, to befriend his literary idol, Conrad Aiken, and to Norway and Germany. After Cambridge, Lowry lived briefly in London, existing on the fringes of the vibrant Thirties literary scene and meeting Dylan Thomas. He met his first wife, Jan Gabrial, in Spain. They were married in France in 1934. Theirs was a turbulent union, especially due to his drinking, and because she resented homosexuals attracted to her husband. United States, Mexico, Canada After an estrangement, Lowry followed Jan to New York City where, almost incoherent after an alcohol-induced breakdown, he checked into Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in 1936 – experiences which later became the basis of his novella Lunar Caustic. When the authorities began to take notice of him, he fled to avoid deportation and then went to Hollywood, where he tried screenwriting. At about that time he began writing Under the Volcano. Lowry and Jan moved to Mexico, arriving in the city of Cuernavaca on 2 November 1936, the Day of the Dead, in a final attempt to salvage their marriage. Lowry continued to drink heavily, though he also devoted more energy to his writing. The effort to save their marriage failed. Jan saw that he wanted a mother figure, and she did not want to mother him. She then ran off with another man in late 1937. Alone in Oaxaca, Lowry entered into another period of dark alcoholic excess, culminating in his deportation from Mexico in the summer of 1938. His family put him up at the Hotel Normandie in Los Angeles where he continued working on his novel and met his second wife, the actress and writer Margerie Bonner. His father sent his rent checks directly to the Normandie's hotel manager. In August Lowry moved to Vancouver, leaving his manuscript behind. Later, Margerie moved up to Vancouver, bringing his manuscript, and the following year they married. At first, they lived in an attic apartment in the city. When World War II broke out, Lowry tried to enlist but was rejected. Correspondence between Lowry and Governor-General of Canada Lord Tweedsmuir (better known as the writer John Buchan) during this time resulted in Lowry's writing several articles for the Vancouver newspaper The Province. The couple lived and wrote in a squatter's shack on the beach near the community of Dollarton, north of Vancouver. In 1944, the beach shack was destroyed by a fire, and Lowry was injured in his efforts to save manuscripts. Margerie was an entirely positive influence, editing Lowry's work skillfully and making sure that he ate as well as drank (she drank, too). The couple traveled to Europe, America and the Caribbean, and while Lowry continued to drink heavily, this seems to have been a relatively peaceful and productive period. It lasted until 1954, when a final nomadic period ensued, embracing New York, London and other places. During their travels to Europe, Lowry twice attempted to strangle Margerie. He lived in Canada for much of his active writing career and is thus also considered a significant figure in Canadian literature. He won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction in 1961 for his posthumous collection Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place. Death Lowry died in June 1957, in a rented cottage in the village of Ripe, Sussex, where he was living with wife Margerie after having returned to England in 1955, ill and impoverished. The coroner's verdict was death by misadventure, and the causes of death given as inhalation of stomach contents, barbiturate poisoning, and excessive consumption of alcohol. It has been suggested that his death was a suicide. Inconsistencies in the accounts given by his wife at various times about what happened on the night of his death have also given rise to suspicions of murder. Lowry is buried in the churchyard of St John the Baptist in Ripe. Lowry wrote in his 1940 poem "Epitaph": "Here lies Malcolm Lowry, late of the Bowery, whose prose was flowery, and often glowery. He lived nightly, and drank daily, and died playing the ukulele," but the epitaph does not appear on his gravestone. Legacy In 2017 the British Library acquired Malcolm Lowry papers from his first wife Jan Gabrial. Lowry's literary papers had been left in the possession of Gabrial's mother, Emily Vanderheim, in 1936 and passed to Gabrial on her mother's death. Some further items were then acquired from Priscilla Bonner, the sister of Margerie Bonner Lowry. The archive contains literary papers of Lowry; personal papers of Jan Gabrial, primarily relating to her marriage to Lowry; and select items relating to Margerie Bonner Lowry, Lowry's second wife. Writings Lowry published little during his lifetime, in comparison with the extensive collection of unfinishe.... Discover the Malcolm Lowry popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Malcolm Lowry books.