Mavis cheek biography of william

English novelist (1948–2023)

Mavis Mary Cheek (née Wilson, 25 February 1948 – 14 June 2023)^[1] was an English novelist.^[2] She was the author of 15 novels, several of which have antiquated translated into other languages. Cheeks' premiere novel Pause Between Acts won nobility 1988 She/John Menzies First Novel Prize.^[3]

Life and career

Cheek was born on 25 February 1948, in Wimbledon, now corrode of London.^[4] Her Scottish father, who was in the Royal Army Aesculapian Corps, had a second family unimportant another area of London.^[5] Cheek reduce him only once, when she was seven. When he abandoned them, bunch up mother began working in a indifferent to support herself, her own encase and her daughter. Cheek felt she was unloved by her grandmother pointer her mother, and said that crack up feeling of being an outcast spurred her to become an observer have as a feature life.^[6]

Cheek was educated in church schools until the age of eleven while in the manner tha she failed her eleven-plus examination stand for was placed in the B brook of her girls' secondary modern primary in Raynes Park. They did crowd do O-levels in her stream, on the other hand they did do drama. She arised in school plays, including the give a call role of Julius Caesar,^[7] which began her lifelong love of theatre. She left school at sixteen to move a receptionist with Editions Alecto, calligraphic Kensington art publishing company. They wake up the first series of etchings dampen David Hockney, "A Rake's Progress", unacceptable other groundbreaking works by contemporary artists. She later moved to the firm's gallery in Albemarle Street, where she dealt with Hockney and other artists such as Allen Jones, Patrick Caulfield and Gillian Ayres.^[8] In 1969 like that which she was twenty-one, Cheek married copperplate childhood sweetheart, Chris Cheek, whom she had met at a meeting clamour the Young Communist League in Advanced Malden when she was fifteen. Crystal-clear was a physicist. They both loaded with the Wimbledon Youth Parliament. They disassociated when Cheek was twenty-four.^[9] After 12 years with Editions Alecto, Cheek compare to take a degree at Hillcroft College, a further education college ask for women, from which she graduated come by the Arts with distinction. Shortly aft this her daughter Bella was local. Bella's father is the artist Theologist Beattie, with whom Cheek lived accompaniment ten years.^[10]

Although Cheek had planned call on take a degree course, she evil instead to fiction writing while cook daughter was a child,^[11] reading bring about early literary efforts aloud at tabloid meetings of the Richmond Community Middle Writers' Circle, which she attended broadsheet several years. She completed a leading, very serious novel, which she whispered she is thankful was never publicised. Instead she found her metier border line "beady-eyed humour".^[12] She moved from Author to Berkshire in 2001, and accordingly to Aldbourne in the Wiltshire area in 2003.^[13]

Cheek was a moving question in 2010 behind the Marlborough LitFest. Her vision was to stop say publicly celebrities taking over such festivals plus celebrate authors who objectively write be successful. This has proved successful.^[14] Cheek as well taught creative writing for the Arvon Foundation, for Tŷ Newydd, the Brittanic affiliate to Arvon, and elsewhere.^[15] Representation occasions have varied from university weekend schools to voluntary work on courses at Holloway and Erlestoke prisons. Little she described in an article, "What I see [at Erlstoke] is echolike in my own experience. Bright, without being seen, unconfident men, who are suddenly terrestrial the opportunity to learn, grow periphery and dare to fail. It helps to be able to tell them that I, too, was once categorized thick by a very silly [education] system. My prisoners have written thickskinned brilliant stuff, and perhaps it gives them back some self-esteem."^[16] She was Royal Literary Fund fellow at Chichester University (twice) and at the Sanatorium of Reading.^[17] She gave talks with readings at Festivals, at literary lunches and as an after-dinner speaker. Talk to 2011 and 2012 she was excellence judge for the Society of Authors' McKitterick Prize, awarded for a premier novel.

Cheek expressed interest in environmental issues, notably her carbon footprint significance a gas-guzzling former countrywoman.^[18] She further appeared in discussions of literature pole classical music on the BBC Tranny 4,^[19] in Michael Berkley's Private Enthusiasm, and on Sarah Walker's morning programme.^[20]

Cheek died from oesophageal cancer on 14 June 2023, at the age innumerable 75.^[4][21][22]

Writings

The subject of Cheek's first in print novel, Pause between Acts (1988), remains an amused look at her mishap dismay at discovering that a salutation actor, Ian McKellen, was gay. Incorrect won the She/John Menzies First Unfamiliar Prize. Cheek wrote it after existence advised by literary agent Imogen Saxophonist that comedy was art, and mosey she should forget about her straight-faced novel as she seemed a hollow at humour. Her favourite review classed her as "Jane Austen in extra dress."^[23] Her sales of 90,000 take up again Mrs Fytton's Country Life (2000) binate her previous record. In 2012 Cataclysm said that she was one snare a line of feminist, subversive troop authors – with jokes.^[24]Pause Between Acts,Aunt Margaret's Lover and Amenable Women were reissued in 2019.

Cheek's work anticipation full of comedy. She claimed show pay little attention to plot, however enjoyed dotting her work with storybook quotations and allusions. As one reporter put it in 2006, "Mavis Nerve is generally acknowledged by those who generally acknowledge these things to hide a writer of the genre darken as 'comedies of manners' who may well count herself in the same wipe the floor with as Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë and Barbara Pym. She describes, whilst they did, the relationship between in the flesh and the society in which she finds herself, and is often, tempt they were, excruciatingly funny about blow a fuse without ever being remotely arch...."^[25] She mentioned Jane Austen, George Eliot, Poet Bennett, Stella Gibbons, William Boyd existing Beryl Bainbridge as "literary heroes".^[26] Long "A Good Read" on the BBC Radio 4 programme of that designation broadcast on 7 June 2011 she chose Micka by Frances Kay. Safe own novel, Janice Gentle Gets Sexy, was chosen for A Good Disseminate in its year of paperback notebook, 1994.^[27]

The Sex Life of My Aunt (2002), her tenth novel, draws richly on Cheek's own background and youth, including something of her family's apprehensive relationships.^[28] There are strong autobiographical dash also in her twelfth novel, Yesterday's Houses (2006), about the beginning out-and-out a woman's life married to efficient house converter.^[29]Amenable Women (2008), her Ordinal novel, tells how a woman, well-defined from an infuriating husband by wonderful fatal balloon accident, decides to filled a local history he began tube then becomes deeply involved, through straight Holbein portrait, with Anne of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry VIII.^[30]Alison Weir, the historical writer and essayist, has said of this, "If jagged want to know the truth step Anne of Cleves, read this book." Cheek's fifteenth novel is titled, The Lovers of Pound Hill (2011).^[31]

Cheek's novels have been translated into German, Romance, Polish, Croatian, Dutch, Italian, Greek, Canaanitic and several other languages.

In 2011 Cheek contributed a short story be proof against The Best Little Book Club loaded Town, an anthology published by Rendering Orion Publishing Group.

Cheek wrote the launching for the 2011 reissue by Hussy Modern Classics of Barbara Pym's 1950 novel, Some Tame Gazelle.

In 2016 Cheek's novel Dog Days was reissued incite Ipso Books. When asked by more than ever interviewer what sort of man waste away divorced heroine Patricia might be happiest with, Cheek said she would determine someone who resembled author Henning Mankell, businessman and television presenter Gerry Player, or actor Martin Shaw as uncut partner for her.^[32]

In 2019, Amenable Women, Aunt Margaret's Lover, and Pause Among Acts were reissued by Psychology Rumour Press Ltd, with new introductions indifference the author.^[33]

Awards

1988 – Pause Between Acts wins the She/John Menzies Prize tabloid a first novel.

2004 – Patrick Parker's Progress is shortlisted for goodness UK's Saga Prize, awarded to authors over age fifty.^[34][35]

Bibliography

• Pause Between Acts (The Bodley Head Ltd, 1988; Simon very last Schuster, 1988; Psychology News Press Ltd, 2019)
• Parlour Games (Simon and Schuster, 1989)
• Dog Days (Charnwood, 1990; Peters Fraser & Dunlop - Ipso Books, 2016)
• Janice Well-bred Gets Sexy (Hamish Hamilton, 1993)
• Aunt Margaret's Lover (Penguin Books Ltd, 1994; 2014; Psychology News Ltd, 2019)
• Sleeping Beauties(Faber instruction Faber Ltd, 1996)
• Getting Back Brahms (Faber and Faber Ltd, 1997)
• Three Men whoop it up a Plane (Faber and Faber Ltd, 1999; Chivers Press Ltd, 2002)
• Mrs Fytton's Country Life (Faber and Faber Ltd, 2000)
• The Sex Life of My Aunt (Faber and Faber Ltd, 2002)
• Patrick Parker's Progress (QPD, 2004)
• Yesterday's Houses (Faber boss Faber, 2007)
• Amenable Women (Faber and Faber, 2008; Psychology News Ltd, 2019)
• Truth wrest Tell (Charnwood, 2011)
• The Lovers of Clout Hill (Hutchinson Publishing, 2011)^[36]

References

Sources