Patrick McGrath | |
|---|---|
 McGrath in 2015 | |
| Born | (1950-02-07)7 February 1950 (age 75) London, England |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Education | Birmingham College of Commerce |
| Genre | Gothic fiction |
| Spouse | |
Patrick McGrath (born 7 February 1950) is a British novelist, whose work has been categorised asgothic fiction.
McGrath was born in London and grew up nearBroadmoor Hospital from the age of five[1] where his father wasMedical Superintendent.[2] He was educated at aJesuit boarding school inWindsor from the age of thirteen, before moving to another Jesuit public school,Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, upon the closure[1] of his first school. In 1967,[3] at the age of sixteen, he ran away from this institution to London.[1] He graduated from the Birmingham College of Commerce with an honours degree in English and American literature in 1971,[3] awarded externally by theUniversity of London, before his father found him a job later that year inPenetang, Ontario working in the Oakridge top-security unit of the Penetang Mental Health Centre.[3]
He has lived in various parts of North America and also spent several years on a remote island in the North Pacific, before finally settling in New York City in 1981.[4]
McGrath also worked as a teacher of creative writing to undergraduate and graduate students at theUniversity of Texas at Austin in the fall semester of 2006.[3] He also taught craft courses for a number of years in theMFA program atHunter College, New York, and since 2007, has taught an MFA program at theNew School in New York.[3]
His archive was acquired by theUniversity of Stirling, Scotland.[5]
His fiction is principally characterised by the first personunreliable narrator, and recurring subject matter in his work includesmental illness, repressed homosexuality and adulterous relationships.[6]
His novelMartha Peake won the PremioFlaiano Prize in Italy[7] andAsylum was shortlisted for the 1996 Guardian Fiction Prize.[4]
He is also currently on the writing faculties of both theNew School in New York andPrinceton University.[3]
Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing at Princeton,Joyce Carol Oates, makes the case that McGrath is transcribing the "nightmares of the 'shattered personality' that resonate within us all," calling his short stories "masterful and seductive, ... Bold, original, and disquieting tales are told by narrators who are themselves bizarre (a boot, a fly—to name just two) and are in most cases omniscient."[8]
He was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature in 2002.[9]
On 27 June 2018, the University of Stirling, Scotland, conferred on him the degree of Doctor of the University "for Patrick McGrath's outstanding support of academic research."[10]
He is married to actressMaria Aitken and divides his time between London and New York City.[11] He is the oldest of four siblings.[1]
Three of McGrath's novels and one of his stories have been adapted into films, two of which adaptations (Spider, 2002 andThe Grotesque, 1995) were written by McGrath himself.[3] The film adaptation forAsylum, 2005 was written byPatrick Marber and a short film made ofThe Lost Explorer fromBlood and Water and Other Tales was adapted byTim Walker.[3] FromThe Wardrobe Mistress[12] to the current unnamed novel-in-progress on theSpanish Civil War,[13] McGrath shows increased interest in the fascistic tendencies in international politics and its effects on the psychology of characters. In the former, for example, the main character Joan Grice uncovers the man she had been living with for a long time, who recently died, had been in the past a member ofMosley'sBritish Union of Fascists. This revelation is so upsetting that causes her to get crazy, and her mental breakdown is signed by a murderous act. Similarly, in McGrath'sLast Days in Cleaver Square (2021), the narrator, an old man called Francis McNulty—a Spanish civil war veteran—is haunted byFrancisco Franco's ghost, which appears in his London garden, and later in his bed, too. He is so much obsessed with his hallucinations that at a certain point, while in Madrid, Franco's spirit causes him to commit a bizarre act of atonement.
McGrath has also co-edited and written the introduction to a highly influential anthology of short fiction,The New Gothic.[3]
He has published many reviews and essays, including introductions toBarnaby Rudge,Moby Dick,The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, andIn a Glass Darkly.[3]
