Christopher Fowler, the award-winning queer Brit author of fifty novels and short-story collections, including the highly successful Bryant & May mysteries, has died in London aged just 69.
The Bryant & May series is set primarily in London, with stories taking place in various years between World War II and the present. While there is a progressive narrative, the cases each stand alone as separate stories. Fowler weaves many factual layers of London’s history and society throughout the series. Most of the locations are recognizable London landmarks such as St Paul’s Cathedral, the Tate Gallery and various theatres.
In 2009 Fowler published Paperboy, his memoir about growing up craving books in a house without any, for which he won the inaugural Green Carnation prize, which celebrates fiction and memoirs written by gay men. Then in his 2016 memoir, Film Freak recalls Soho in the late 1970’s which was Fowler’s favorite stomping ground. When promoting the book, Fowler talked about a Wardour Street producer who promised to shoot a film for Fowler but was actually more interested in ‘walking his nicotine-stained fingers up my inside leg under the table in The Ship,’ Fowler remembers ruefully.‘I was young, hungry and suddenly less ugly than I had been as a child. But if I was going to sleep with anyone in the film industry, he had to be under 50 and not look like an ashtray in a jumper.’
He had just finished the manuscript for his third memoir, Word Monkey before he died. It is to be published in August by Doubleday.
Fowler has achieved several ridiculous schoolboy fantasies, releasing a terrible Christmas pop single, becoming a male model, writing a stage show, posing as the villain in a Batman graphic novel, running a night club, appearing in the Pan Books of Horror and standing in for James Bond. After living in the USA and France he is now married and lives in London’s King’s Cross and Barcelona.
On his Twitter feed, Fowler’s ‘husband Paul posted “Christopher Robert Fowler, 3 score & 10, 1953-2023. His sparkle, joy and humor are gone, but remain in my heart and his work. What a remarkable person we all shared. Goodbye to a beautiful man, a beautiful mind, my partner in crime and soulmate. Pete x Happy #WorldBookDay2023”
Fowler’s other awards include the 2015 CWA Dagger in the Library (for his entire body of work), The Last Laugh Award (twice) and the British Fantasy Award (multiple times), the Edge Hill Prize
Fowler also wrote a periodic column for The Independent titled Invisible Ink. In this series, he looked at a wide range of writers whose works, once popular, have now fallen out of the public eye. His book version, The Book of Forgotten Authors, is published by Quercus. Fowler once said that one day he planned to realize his ambition to become a Forgotten Author himself.
Trust me, that will not happen.
Christopher Fowler (26 March 1953 – March 2023) R.I.P.
Labels: 2023, Bryant May, Christopher Fowler, obituary, writer
