RIP Dick Francis 2/14/2010 February 20, 2010
Posted by Princess Wordplay in Rants/Raves.Tags: Dick Francis
add a comment
“It was a terrible day. I can only console myself with the fact that if it hadn’t happened I wouldn’t have written a book. As a result I was asked to write my autobiography.” — Dick Francis, in regards to the horse racing accident that ended his career as a jockey and spawned his career as a writer.
***
Shortly after moving to the US, I picked up a few Reader’s Digest condensed books at a garage sale. One volume included Francis’ Straight which I immediately fell in love with – so much that I begged Mother to drive me to the local library, where I checked out as many Dick Francis titles as I could carry.
Francis took something he knew inside out – horses and horse racing – and mixed in mystery and suspense to create one of a kind stories that were exciting and memorable.
Francis never changed the world. He was a novelist, an entertainer. Characters like Derek Franklin and Kit Fielding did not inspire political change or end war and suffering. They were racing jockeys who found themselves suddenly dropped into a murder mystery.
No, Dick Francis will never be credited as the man who’s writing evolved mankind and reinvented life as we know it.
But so what?
He will be remembered as a great entertainer, someone who could spin an original story that had it’s readers on the edge of their seats page after page. He will be immortalized as the man who fell off a horse, sat in front of a typewriter, and brought us a few dozen murder mysteries. That, to me, is something just as commendable.
He was one of my heroes, and he will be missed.
