As a writer and a publisher, David Marcus was an important Irish literary figure. He is probably best known as the founder and editor, in 1968, of the New Irish Writing page in The Irish Press. There, he was responsible for finding and encouraging one of Ireland's greatest exports - good writing. He published poetry and short stories, and many now well-known writers made their debut there. "I'll drop you a line" were always his closing words to a writer. Hence the title, I'll Drop You a Line: A Life with David Marcus (Londubh, £12.99) of Ita Daly's wise and moving memoir of a man and a marriage.
Daly was an English teacher at a Dublin girls' school when she submitted a short story to the Irish Press. Marcus admired it and arranged to discuss it with her in the pub next to his office.
Marcus found himself as attracted to the writer as to her work. He did more than drop her line, but it was not to be a straightforward courtship. Marcus was an unmarried 48-year-old, Daly was also single, but 20 years younger. Marcus was a fervent Corkonian, and his Orthodox family were leading members of Cork's small Jewish community, though Marcus became a firm non-believer. Daly was from a devout Catholic family in Co. Leitrim, but also lapsed. There were objections to their marriage from both sides. Daly's mother simply said: "You can't. He's not baptised." They resolved the problem by fleeing to Rome, where they were married in a small, empty church by a priest, dressed like "a laid-back American hippy."
In this beautifully written book, Daly writes with insight and humour about starting her new life with a husband whom bachelorhood had set in his ways. They reached compromises, but the Sabbath was sacred. Marcus went out early, not to synagogue but to buy the Racing Times and place his bets before watching the racing on Channel 4. Daly writes "he might as well have been an observant Jew for all I saw of him."
But they had a happy and fruitful marriage and brought up a much-loved daughter. As Daly wrote four highly praised novels, Marcus wrote two as well as editing short-story anthologies. Daly writes: "a good editor has a nose for literature, just as rare as a nose for wine. That's what David had."
They were married by a priest dressed like a hippy
They were married for 37 years, but their last five years together were painful as Marcus deteriorated, physically and mentally, with dementia. She writes about this period, and her grief, with honesty, courage and rare insight.
She writes that she sometimes now watches a few minutes of racing and, when she turns off the TV: "I see him sitting in his chair opposite, the Sporting Life open on his knee. We don't really die when we die; there are still little bits of us floating around until those who knew us also die and then, finally, we are gone."