H R F Keating
Apr. 1st, 2011 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceHarry Keating's dead. I didn't know.
He died last weekend, just one day after Diana. Have I mentioned, I have had enough of this?
I knew Harry for twenty years, give or take. In that time we shared many drinks, one controversy, and at least one publisher - the fabulous Flambard Press, which has also died this week, or at least announced its forthcoming death by grace of Arts Council cuts. I'm distressed about that too; I had been meaning to write an obituary, but, y'know. Novels, and so forth.
Flambard published my short story collection, Blood Waters; for Harry they brought out his Jack the Lady-Killer, a detective novel in verse. That was a measure of his mind, that he had sufficient twist of originality to think of it and then sufficient weight to carry it through. His wit was immeasurable, light and sharp and delightful; I never had the impertinence to measure his beard.
He died last weekend, just one day after Diana. Have I mentioned, I have had enough of this?
I knew Harry for twenty years, give or take. In that time we shared many drinks, one controversy, and at least one publisher - the fabulous Flambard Press, which has also died this week, or at least announced its forthcoming death by grace of Arts Council cuts. I'm distressed about that too; I had been meaning to write an obituary, but, y'know. Novels, and so forth.
Flambard published my short story collection, Blood Waters; for Harry they brought out his Jack the Lady-Killer, a detective novel in verse. That was a measure of his mind, that he had sufficient twist of originality to think of it and then sufficient weight to carry it through. His wit was immeasurable, light and sharp and delightful; I never had the impertinence to measure his beard.