Long-distance followers of Madame Arcati will know of the unclassifiable (yet detachable) bond between myself and writer Duncan Fallowell. I know he had mixed feelings about my publishing the nude photo of him - passed to me by a mischief-maker-by-the-Med. Now we must test our alliance once again: he may not be entirely happy to learn that information has reached me of his mysterious 'ghost novel' - and naturally I feel compelled to repeat it.
One of the episodes in his new travel book How To Disappear (Madame Arcati review) was to be about the so-called Curse of the Cravens: holders of the Craven title are prone to dying young. However, I learn that this turned into a book in its own right, his ghost novel which is titled Cruel - and remains unpublished. This is because it contains a vivid deathbed scene for the actual Dowager Countess of Craven whom he assumed to have died long ago. Oops. It turned out she was still alive (a Gemini, natch) - in her 90s - and very much the matriarch! - so of course he couldn't put the novel forward.
My informant tells me that Duncan had had his eyes peeeeeled for her obituary ever since, desperate to sell his novel - but nothing. Then last week a death notice for her appeared in the Telegraph - she died peacefully in her sleep in June. A cloud with a literary silver lining: Cruel is now unleashed, ready to spook and tell the tale of the horizontal Countess whose two sons tragically predeceased her.
Incidentally, this isn't the first time Fallowell has determined someone's death prematurely. In How To Disappear, he pursues the social climber Bapsy Pavry (aka Lady Winchester). At one stage he is quite convinced she must be dead until disabused. Then he has his 'supernatural Pavry obituary' experience - for more about which you must read the book. (click here to buy)
29 comments:
Who was the Countess of Craven or Lady Winchester? Why do we care?
I love a good ghost story! Especially when it comes out of real life
Nothing like a title or two, Lady Bracknell, to generate shivers in ghost story. You're bit of an old witchy hag yourself, lady B
So has the craven title died out?
I assume Duncan will have to rewrite his deathbed scene now we know the real countess died peacefully in her sleep. Unless she's depicted sleep-talking, perhaps possessed by one of her dead sons. Well, why not?
I'd read a novel called The Cuntess.
There is a current earl, a grandson of the matriarch
Didn't Fallowell have a thing with Diana Mosley in her 90s? It's getting weird
Craven. A very strange name.
I take great exception to being called a witchy hag. To write about one titled woman who is completely unknown may be regarded as a misfortune. To write about two looks like carelessness.
Because someone has a title doesn't mean they're not interesting. It's not only the underclass who deserve attention. Peole of all stations have their stories.
The present Earl of Craven is 21 and incredibly handsome
That's interesting. I wonder whether Lord Craven would like to be interviewed. I could ask him about the curse and I'd do his horoscope.
When's Cruel out?
He'll think about it
why Gemini natch - are they long livers?
I'm sure some know-all statistician would prove to me that Geminis are no more prone to longevity than, say, er, Librans; but as a Gemini myself I intend to put up a robust resistance to death. And I can always think of my (late) fellow Gemini uncle who staggered on to 100, out of sheer cussedness so far as I can tell.
This site needs to grow some balls
Virgoans live long too
Well, my ex Henri was Virgo and she died at 56. Just saying.
Freddie Mercury was a Virgo.
Oh yes I'd love to read an interview with young Craven
A lot of cunts around these days who never respond to emails. I wonder if Lord Craven is one of those. I must look up his star sign.
the email is the arthritis of action
On Amazon someone is asking for £1,223.22 for a secondhand edition of DF's book. Must be barking.
How do they work that out? And what shop is it?
"Who was the Countess of Craven or Lady Winchester? Why do we care?"
Bracknell exposing her middle class roots again.
The Craven collection is now heartbreakingly scattered to the four winds. One finds oneself confronted by dribs and drabs of it in the oddest places. Melbourne in the antipodes, to mention but one example, has a number of grim little Craven portraits in its National Gallery cruelly spotlit and subjected to the blind gazes of the tracksuited proletariat, where previously they served, wrapped in shadows, to add gracious background ambience to a home of the first rank.
Duncan sounded gorgeous on Excess Baggage. You have good taste, Madame Arcati.
I should imagine that these 'track-suited' types are thinking, 'Who is that funny looking person on the wall called Craven with the receding chin?'
I must confess that I feel somewhat bewildered by it all. To be born and well-bred, and then to end up on a wall, unrecognised, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life.
No one christened Augusta could ever claim a 'middleclass' parentage!
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