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Charlie Resnick

A Mysterious Profile

John Harvey

To the memory of two fine professionals, Laurence James and Dulan Barber, without whom it is doubtful Charlie Resnick would ever have existed—and for Marian Wood, who, as my US editor at Henry Holt, was responsible for keeping Charlie, and myself, more or less in line for a good—a very good—ten years. Thanks, Marian.

Charlie Resnick

Charlie Resnick

That I became a writer at all—and that Charlie Resnick, therefore, was brought into existence—was largely due to a series of convenient accidents. You see, I had never harbored any ambitions to be a writer, at least, not a fiction writer, and until the time that my first book was published [Avenging Angel, New English Library, 1975, under the pen name of Thom Ryder] I had made no attempts in that direction: no early masterpieces stored beneath the bed or in an adoring parent’s drawer, no prize-winning contributions to some children’s short story competition. I had, it’s true, both at secondary school and then again at college, edited a couple of student newspapers, gracing them with the occasional review or what I saw as a scathing muckraking expose, but this was journalism, nothing more, nor less, and although, looking back, I’m somewhat bemused to understand why, it had never occurred to me that it might be my profession. No. I was destined to be a teacher, an inspirational—well, I was still young—teacher of English and Drama to whatever hapless 11–18 year olds found themselves seated before me.