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The Three Suitors of Fred Belair
Winifred Belair is one of the returnees who gossip over drinks on the verandahs of the Caribbean island of St Caesare. Fred is still good-looking and eligible, but her friends warn her about the visit from Barbados of the Rev Alex Taylor - ""looking for a soul-mate to help him with the Good Works. And save the world."" Her other two suitors, typically for Markham, are figments of Markham's alter ego Pewter Stapleton's elaborately imagined fantasy. Readers of E. A. Markham's inimitable stories will not be surprised that this linked collection encompasses cricket, boxing and world politics as well as matrimony in later life; or that Pewter's travels take him to Boston, Massachussetts; Trinity College, Dublin; London, Sheffield; and the atmospheric streets of Paris.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 29, 2009
2 people want to read
About the author
E.A. Markham
33 books2 followersEdward Archie Markham FRSL was a poet and writer, born in Harris, Montserrat, and mainly resident in the United Kingdom from 1956. Known for poetry in both "nation-language" (patois) and standard English, for short stories and a comic novel, he sometimes used the pseudonym Paul St. Vincent and other personae, and defies simple classification as an author. He edited two significant collections of Caribbean writing, and several literary magazines. His first work was in drama.
His family was large and relatively prosperous. He attended grammar school in Montserrat, and read English and philosophy at the University of Wales, Lampeter. He started academic research into seventeenth century comedy at the University of East Anglia, and then in London. In 1969, while lecturing at Kilburn Polytechnic, he formed the Caribbean Theatre Troupe, which toured Monserrat, Saint Vincent and other parts of the Eastern Caribbean. They performed The Private Life of the Public Man and Dropping Out is Violence.
He then worked in France for two years. His Lambchops poems, written as Paul St. Vincent, started to appear in the mid-1970s, and assume the perspective of a young urban Caribbean man. He would also use the voices of Sally Goodman, a Welsh feminist, Philpot and Maureen, and the character of Pewter Stapleton, an unimpressive academic, in his novel and stories. He built up a reputation gradually as a poet, through small press and chapbook publication.
He joined for a time the performers The Bluefoot Travellers. In the later 1970s he taught in Manchester, then had writing fellowships in Hull and London (on a C. Day Lewis Fellowship).
In a long itinerant period he took a position for two years 1983-5 in Papua New Guinea, working for Enga province. He followed that with two years editing Artrage, the magazine of the Minority Arts Advisory Service. He spent 1988-91 at the University of Ulster as a writer-in-residence; he edited Writing Ulster.
He also lived in Germany and Sweden, and in Britain, in Ipswich and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He served in both the Poetry Society and Poetry Book Society.
He was awarded the Certificate of Honour by the Government of Montserrat, in 1997.
As Professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University, a position he held until his death, he directed the Hallam Literature Festival. He also edited Sheffield Thursday magazine, and ran its competitions for poetry and short stories.
Markham died of a heart attack in Paris on Easter day, 23 March 2008, at the age of 69
His family was large and relatively prosperous. He attended grammar school in Montserrat, and read English and philosophy at the University of Wales, Lampeter. He started academic research into seventeenth century comedy at the University of East Anglia, and then in London. In 1969, while lecturing at Kilburn Polytechnic, he formed the Caribbean Theatre Troupe, which toured Monserrat, Saint Vincent and other parts of the Eastern Caribbean. They performed The Private Life of the Public Man and Dropping Out is Violence.
He then worked in France for two years. His Lambchops poems, written as Paul St. Vincent, started to appear in the mid-1970s, and assume the perspective of a young urban Caribbean man. He would also use the voices of Sally Goodman, a Welsh feminist, Philpot and Maureen, and the character of Pewter Stapleton, an unimpressive academic, in his novel and stories. He built up a reputation gradually as a poet, through small press and chapbook publication.
He joined for a time the performers The Bluefoot Travellers. In the later 1970s he taught in Manchester, then had writing fellowships in Hull and London (on a C. Day Lewis Fellowship).
In a long itinerant period he took a position for two years 1983-5 in Papua New Guinea, working for Enga province. He followed that with two years editing Artrage, the magazine of the Minority Arts Advisory Service. He spent 1988-91 at the University of Ulster as a writer-in-residence; he edited Writing Ulster.
He also lived in Germany and Sweden, and in Britain, in Ipswich and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He served in both the Poetry Society and Poetry Book Society.
He was awarded the Certificate of Honour by the Government of Montserrat, in 1997.
As Professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University, a position he held until his death, he directed the Hallam Literature Festival. He also edited Sheffield Thursday magazine, and ran its competitions for poetry and short stories.
Markham died of a heart attack in Paris on Easter day, 23 March 2008, at the age of 69
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 7, 2020
just bought this and looking forward to the last (he died last year) of the Tindal St Press collections of his humourous, digressive, erudite stories.
Later:
I've given this & every book in the trilogy 4 stars, but overall/together they may be worth 5 stars, because they are a fine achievement. I did meet the author (at the launch of the second book) so maybe I'm biased, but this is a kind of 'Tristam Shandy' of middle/late middle age, semi-autobiographical musings, or stories that ramble from one subject to the next in a perfectly logical way.
I'll put a quote in when I get hold of the book (it's at home) to give you more of an idea.
Later still:
Yes, it's hard to quote from, but here's something from the story 'The Food Taster' in which Markham (or his narrator) muses on a lift he and a (white) female companion get from a 'Nazi' in France in the 70s (his 'interest in the noir and the blanche travelling together seemed intrusive') and thinks he is getting a gun out of his pocket which turn out to be sandwiches, and which the narrator thinks later gives them food poisoning (the 'Nazi' doesn't eat any); his companion disagrees and puts it down to a later pizza. Anyway this leads to a digression on the qualities of food tasters in Ancient Rome:
'But then if you were an emperor would you want any old bit of riff-raff sitting next to you, sharing your plate? You’d want someone washed and oiled, just come from the baths, not too bad-looking, good teeth etc., so that the breath wouldn’t be offensive at dinner. And, surely, someone you could talk to, if the mood took you; so not a foreigner who couldn’t speak the language… likely to be someone from your community, if not quite your class, someone in touch with it enough to pick up references to things going on in the empire – if not actually at the court of Rome; and the person would, presumably, have a discreet line to the kitchens, to get them to hold off on the poison.'
it then goes off into a play the narrator has written on food poisoning and shopping in Somerfield (a supermarket chain in the UK), reading Chekhov and Updike etc etc.
I enjoyed the whole trilogy but can see why people wouldn't, maybe it's something that appeals when you hit middle age, or - as with me - mid/late middle age.
sorry meant to give the titles of the Trilogy:
Meet Me in Mozambique (2006)
At Home with Miss Vanesa (sic) (2007)
The Three Suitors of Fred Belair (2009)
All published by Tindal St Press. 'Fred Belair' btw is short for Winifred Belair in case you're wondering.
Later:
I've given this & every book in the trilogy 4 stars, but overall/together they may be worth 5 stars, because they are a fine achievement. I did meet the author (at the launch of the second book) so maybe I'm biased, but this is a kind of 'Tristam Shandy' of middle/late middle age, semi-autobiographical musings, or stories that ramble from one subject to the next in a perfectly logical way.
I'll put a quote in when I get hold of the book (it's at home) to give you more of an idea.
Later still:
Yes, it's hard to quote from, but here's something from the story 'The Food Taster' in which Markham (or his narrator) muses on a lift he and a (white) female companion get from a 'Nazi' in France in the 70s (his 'interest in the noir and the blanche travelling together seemed intrusive') and thinks he is getting a gun out of his pocket which turn out to be sandwiches, and which the narrator thinks later gives them food poisoning (the 'Nazi' doesn't eat any); his companion disagrees and puts it down to a later pizza. Anyway this leads to a digression on the qualities of food tasters in Ancient Rome:
'But then if you were an emperor would you want any old bit of riff-raff sitting next to you, sharing your plate? You’d want someone washed and oiled, just come from the baths, not too bad-looking, good teeth etc., so that the breath wouldn’t be offensive at dinner. And, surely, someone you could talk to, if the mood took you; so not a foreigner who couldn’t speak the language… likely to be someone from your community, if not quite your class, someone in touch with it enough to pick up references to things going on in the empire – if not actually at the court of Rome; and the person would, presumably, have a discreet line to the kitchens, to get them to hold off on the poison.'
it then goes off into a play the narrator has written on food poisoning and shopping in Somerfield (a supermarket chain in the UK), reading Chekhov and Updike etc etc.
I enjoyed the whole trilogy but can see why people wouldn't, maybe it's something that appeals when you hit middle age, or - as with me - mid/late middle age.
sorry meant to give the titles of the Trilogy:
Meet Me in Mozambique (2006)
At Home with Miss Vanesa (sic) (2007)
The Three Suitors of Fred Belair (2009)
All published by Tindal St Press. 'Fred Belair' btw is short for Winifred Belair in case you're wondering.
August 9, 2017
From my review in the Guardian:
The Three Suitors of Fred Belair can seem challenging at first: the narrative changes tense and person, place and time, often, and without warning. Readers not familiar with Pewter, Miss Vanesa and others from EA Markham’s previous short story collections might feel baffled to be thrust so deeply into their lives – and yet the voice that puts you there is nothing if not inviting. Markham’s familiars fantasise and reminisce, write poems and recount their dreams, examine and re-examine minutiae, in stories that are gentle, confiding, even confessional.
Markham died in 2008, and his last book has a sense of stocktaking. Past and present, real and imagined, melt convincingly together; the prose is graceful, inventive and robust, the pattern of free association yields charming results … but there’s something self-indulgent – even self-congratulatory – about giving so much space to non-events. Some readers won’t be surprised, after several pages about the naming of a literary magazine, to learn that Pewter himself, the main character and the author’s avatar, “was vaguely bored by all this”.
The Three Suitors of Fred Belair can seem challenging at first: the narrative changes tense and person, place and time, often, and without warning. Readers not familiar with Pewter, Miss Vanesa and others from EA Markham’s previous short story collections might feel baffled to be thrust so deeply into their lives – and yet the voice that puts you there is nothing if not inviting. Markham’s familiars fantasise and reminisce, write poems and recount their dreams, examine and re-examine minutiae, in stories that are gentle, confiding, even confessional.
Markham died in 2008, and his last book has a sense of stocktaking. Past and present, real and imagined, melt convincingly together; the prose is graceful, inventive and robust, the pattern of free association yields charming results … but there’s something self-indulgent – even self-congratulatory – about giving so much space to non-events. Some readers won’t be surprised, after several pages about the naming of a literary magazine, to learn that Pewter himself, the main character and the author’s avatar, “was vaguely bored by all this”.
July 16, 2015
I am so glad this book is finished. I honestly cannot remember another book where I finished it and was barely able to remember anything that happened, like it's the case here. I just give it 2 stars because I had to laugh maybe twice, but otherwise, this book was really bad.
August 26, 2009
Terrible - read it for my library book club and don't have anything nice to say about it. Badly drawn characters and boring story. Don't do it to yourself...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews