Mark Only

by T.F. Powys

(From the publisher's website)

Synopsis:
‘Heavy clouds darkened the Dodderdown Church one Sunday in December. There was a baptism in progress that afternoon.’ A little later on, ‘What name?’ he asked crossly. ‘Mark’ replied Mr Andrews, and then added a little louder, ‘Mark only.’...

‘Mark Only, I baptize thee in the name of the Holy Ghost.’ A mistake, of course, but this accident of nomenclature sets the principal character on a life of misfortune.

Faber Finds are reissuing six works by T. F. Powys: Mr Tasker’s Gods, Mark Only, Mockery Gap, Innocent Birds, Fables and God’s Eyes A-Twinkle.

268 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Theodore Francis Powys, published as T. F. Powys, was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys (1843–1923), vicar of Montacute, Somerset, for 32 years, and Mary Cowper Johnson, grand-daughter of Dr John Johnson, cousin and close friend of the poet William Cowper. He was one of eleven talented siblings, including the novelist John Cowper Powys (1872–1963) and the novelist and essayist Llewelyn Powys (1884–1939).
A sensitive child, Powys was not happy in school and left when he was 15 to become an apprentice on a farm in Suffolk. Later he had his own farm in Suffolk, but he was not successful and returned to Dorset in 1901 with plans to be a writer. Then, in 1905, he married Violet Dodd. They had two sons and later adopted a daughter. From 1904 until 1940 Theodore Powys lived in East Chaldon but then moved to Mappowder because of the war.
During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), Powys was one of several UK writers who campaigned for aid to be sent to the Republican side.
Powys was deeply, if unconventionally, religious; the Bible was a major influence, and he had a special affinity with writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, including John Bunyan, Miguel de Cervantes, Jeremy Taylor, Jonathan Swift, and Henry Fielding. Among more recent writers, he admired Thomas Hardy, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
He died on 27 November 1953 in Mappowder, Dorset, where he was buried. [from wikipedia, adapted]

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bleak black comedy that sticks the knife in early and twists it for good measure right at the very last sentence.