Graham Joyce is a unique master of magical realism, who has written books that we want to find all our lives, but, unfortunately, we rarely find them.
Graham Joyce Biography
Graham William Joyce is better known in literary circles as Joyce Graham. The biography of the writer was not distinguished by any significant events. He was born in the small town of Coventry in 1954. The father of the future celebrity was a simple miner. In 1980, Graham graduated from the University of Leicester. The theme of his master's thesis was dedicated to Thomas Pincheon. The training took place at the local Bishop Lonsdale College. Everything was like a normal average young man.
After graduation, he went to work in an organization called the National Association of Youth Clubs, which specialized in the re-education of problem teenagers. Thus, a craving for psychology began to manifest in him from an early age. He worked there for more than eight years.
Already in recent years, Graham Joyce began to seriously think about the career of a writer. Immediately after his dismissal, he goes to live on the Greek island of Lesbos. Inspired by the decor, he writes his first serious work, entitled Dreamside (1988 - 1989). The creative nature of the young writer does not appease, and he goes on a long journey through the Middle East.
In it, he finally decides to pursue a professional creative career and for this he chooses a quiet life in England. He moves to Leicester.
Writer's work
Graham's work cannot be attributed to any one genre. His works incorporate aspects of science fiction, fantasy, traditional horrors, mainstream, but at the same time are filled with supernatural, metaphysical and psychological notes. Most literary critics believe that his thinking was influenced by such Latin American writers as Julio Cortazar and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And his works are called "magically realistic."
However, the author himself does not agree with this. Graham Joyce claims that his formation as an author was influenced by the works of Algeron Blackwood and Arthur Machen. And the work relates more to the heat of weird tale. In an interview with the famous Locus magazine, he admitted that he was trying to create works that were completely different from his previous works, but at the same time maintain a balance between the irrational and the rational.
Achievements of the young writer
Graham still manages to create absolutely unlike anything else. And a large number of awards and nominations confirm this. The vast majority of works have been awarded honorary awards. The annual award for "Best Novel of the Year," created by the British Fantasy Society, was awarded four of his works: The Tooth Fairy, Dark Sister (Required), Requiem, as well as Indigo ("Indigo").
In other, equally significant World Fantasy and Imaginaire nominations, the novels The Facts of Life and Smoking Poppy won. These works are also of great interest among literary critics. By the way, the writing of the last of them was preceded by a two-week excursion to Thailand, where Graham Joyce studied the life of one of the tribes. It specializes in growing opium poppy.
Over his entire career, Joyce Graham, in addition to outstanding works, has created a large number of equally unique stories. The best of them were collected in the authorial book Partial Eclipse and Other Stories, as well as in the compilation of short stories In Dreams, Eurotemps and Darklands 2.
Novel "Poppy Smoking"
The work "Poppy Smoking" is an absolutely uncompromising and brightly hallucinatory novel, the likes of which simply do not exist. He tells the life situation of a simple electrician from England, whose life turned upside down after he was informed about the detention of his daughter. It turns out that she was trying to take out a load of opium from Thailand. To the rescue of his daughter, he takes his eldest son and partner in the intellectual game. Once in Thailand, he finds himself at the epicenter of a huge rotating drug trafficking mechanism. On the one groan are the so-called opium generals, and on the other, centuries-old beliefs of the tribes collecting opium.
In this deadly battle, he has to fight not only for the life of his own daughter, but also for her soul.
The novel "The Truth of Life"
This work is simply unique, which describes family relationships, love, war and, of course, magic. At the center of events is one family of seven daughters led by Martha. Frank, born at the end of the war, is passed around in a circle between all his daughters, and Cassie, his mother, suffers from serious nervous breakdowns. A little boy is trying to find his place in the commune, learning the craft of embalming. He has a secret mystical friend - the Man who is behind the glass and speaks only with Frank. Also, the boy begins to realize that he develops the gift of foresight.
Novel "Tooth Fairy"
This work is the most famous of those that Graham Joyce created. Reviews of the book are only positive, and, which is important, even among literary critics. He is represented in the genre of magical realism.
The novel “Tooth Fairy” is based on the old belief that if a small child places a lost milk tooth under his pillow, then the Tooth Fairy will exchange it for a coin at night while the child is sleeping.
The work describes one of the cases when something went wrong. The novel begins with the fact that Sam, a seven-year-old boy, putting a fallen milk tooth under his pillow, falls asleep in the hope of finding a coin there in the morning. But everything does not happen as it should, but all because Sam woke up at night and saw the Tooth Fairy. The worst thing for a boy is that she is presented not as a benevolent cute princess, but as an asexual evil creature. But the surprises do not end there. It turns out that it will accompany the boy until the end of his youth. At the same time, constantly threatening, scaring, but occasionally helping him.
Unfortunately, a unique writer died in his sixtieth year of life. However, the name Graham Joyce, books and his uniqueness of perception of literary art will please us with their fantasticness for a long time.
The last years of his life, Graham Joyce continued to live in England in the city of Leicester, but with two children and his wife Susanna Johnson. In addition to his creative career, he shared his skills with others at Nottingham Trent University, teaching writing skills.
September 9, 2014, after a long serious illness, he died.