One thing that gives bibliophiles particular pleasure is to recommend to friends a neglected author – or someone who friends may not have encountered. Those in the know about such things are well aware that the late Robert Aickman is perhaps the greatest writer in Britain of supernatural fiction since MR James, but his reputation has languished in recent years. Aficionados of the very finest weird writing have long been aware that Aickman is the ne plus ultra of the genre; his elegant and atmospheric stories leave most of his contemporaries and successors standing. Aickman described his work as “strange” stories concerned with the “void behind the face of order.” His work interrogates the rational façade of reality, only to discover its dangerous — and unsettling — undercurrents. A variety of collections have redressed the balance, but my only regret about the author’s renewed acclaim is that I can no longer say to people: ‘But have you read Robert Aickman’s ‘The Trains’?’
However – if there is any justice — the finessing of Aickman’s reputation will be further enhanced by R.B. Russell’s detailed, intelligent and comprehensive biography, which is surely the last word on the author – it is impossible to imagine more justice being done to his reputation. Russell himself is no mean practitioner of the art of the short story (he is probably wise to use the ‘R.B.’ nomenclature rather than ‘Ray’ to avoid confusion with another master of the Gothic form – the American Ray Russell). Other subjects who have enjoyed his attention are Arthur Machen and Sylvia Townsend Warner, and this biography of Aickman – the first full biography of the author – attempts to examine a variety of myths that have surrounded the writer and his life. This is no hagiography, however; Russell is well aware that the novelist was a difficult man who made many enemies, but Aickman’s achievement – as well as the fascinating details of his life – are here given a definitive assessment. Anyone reading Russell’s study will now be sent back to the work afresh – and what more could anyone want from a biography?
Robert Aickman: An Attempted Biography by RB Russell Is published by Tartarus Press
