John Alan Patrick Lodwick (2 March 1916 – 18 March 1959) was a British novelist.

Life

Son of a father in the Indian Army, who died in the sinking of the SS Persia just before his son's birth, Lodwick attended

Cheltenham College ("Work Conquers All") , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent School Day and Boarding School , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head , head = Nicola Huggett ...

and the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. He spent some time working as a journalist in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

before moving to France. He later recalled writing several unpublished novels during this period, but in a contrasting account stated that he wrote only plays. He joined the

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (french: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army which comprises several specialties: infantry, Armoured Cavalry Arm, cavalry, Military engineering, engineers, Airborne forces, airborne troops. It was created ...

at the outbreak of World War II, and was awarded the

Croix de Guerre The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...

in 1940. His prize-winning first novel, which he began to write while stranded in

Vichy France Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

, ''Running to Paradise'', is a fictionalised account of combat with the Legion and experiences as a

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...

. Subsequently, he served as an officer in the

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

, parachuting behind enemy lines to work undercover as a saboteur, and, in the rank of captain, served with the

Special Boat Service The Special Boat Service (SBS) is the special forces unit of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. The SBS can trace its origins back to the Second World War when the Army Special Boat Section was formed in 1940. After the Second World War, the Roya ...

on raids in the Mediterranean and the Aegean. He was

mentioned in dispatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...

in 1945. In addition to novels, he also published two volumes of autobiography, the second left incomplete at the time of his death in a car accident in Spain. Some of his books reflect his war experiences, including his exploits as an officer in the

. He also wrote thrillers which analyse the psychological and spiritual motivations of their protagonists.

Critical reception

The novels were admired by the author

Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...

. A few years after Lodwick's death,

Anthony Burgess John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his Utopian and dystopian fiction, d ...

wrote: "He is not afraid of rhetoric, grandiloquence; his knowledge of foreign literature is wide; his mastery of the English language matches Evelyn Waugh's." He warned, nevertheless, that because of his early death he was "in danger of being neglected", and indeed

D. J. Taylor David John Taylor (born 1960) is a British critic, novelist and biographer. After attending school in Norwich, he read Modern History at St John's College, Oxford, and has received the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award for his biography of Geo ...

has written that in the post-war years Lodwick's "doomy romanticism sat queerly alongside the comic realism of a Waterhouse or an Amis: Lodwick's reputation did not survive the 1960s." He has been described as an "odd-man-out" among his literary contemporaries, and credited with a "picaresque and romantic" imagination.Walter Allen, ''The Modern Novel in Britain and the United States'', E.P. Dutton (1964), page 277

Novels

*Running To Paradise (1943) *Myrmyda: A Novel of the Aegean (1946) (U.S. title: Aegean Adventure) *Peal of Ordnance (1947) *Twenty East of Greenwich; or, A Barnum Among The Robespierres (1947) *Brother Death (1948) *Something in the Heart (1948) *Just A Song at Twilight (1949) *Stamp Me Mortal (1950) *First Steps Inside The Zoo (1950) (U.S. title: The Man Dormant) *The Cradle of Neptune (1951) *Love Bade Me Welcome (1952) *Somewhere A Voice Is Calling (1953) *The Butterfly Net (1954) *The Starless Night (1955) *Contagion To This World (1956) *Equator (1957) *The Moon Through A Dusty Window (1960)

Autobiography

*Bid The Soldiers Shoot (1958) *The Asparagus Trench: An Autobiographical Beginning (1960)

Other works

*The Filibusters:The Story of the Special Boat Service (1947) (re-issued as Raiders from the Sea) *The Forbidden Coast: The Story of a Journey To Rio De Oro (1956) *(With D.H. Young) Gulbenkian: An Interpretation of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1958)

References