by Mark Ryan
But in all this carnage there was no sign of any human presence.
I had to tear my dreadful fascination from this awesome sight and look to my own salvation. Behind the colliery lay the railway track, long disused but still navigable and so ran to it just as the street on which I had been standing subsided into the ground with a great roar of mortal defiance. Nor did I stop running until blinded by the blood my tortured heart had forced behind my eyes. I fell to the track, lungs goaded beyond endurance, immobile save for the palsied shaking of my hands as they gripped incontinently at the gravel beneath the rails.
When I was able to regain my feet I looked back at Aberuffern but it had gone; only the woods remained. I turned and walked down the track. Dawn was breaking and I was going home to bury my mother.
About the Author
Mark Ryan was born in London in 1959. After leaving school at sixteen he toured in various bands including Adam and the Ants and appeared in Derek Jarman’s 1977 film Jubilee. In the late 1980s he attended Dartington College of Arts and gained a degree in music, collaborating with the theatre department on a wide range of productions. Mark moved to Wales in 1991, settling in Cardiff where he worked in professional theatre as a playwright, musician and designer.
He was a prolific playwright producing work that often integrated music and song with vibrant dialogue. His work reached a wide audience including children and young people, winning acclaim and awards. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as told to Carl Jung by an inmate of Broadmoor Asylum was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1997 and was The Scotsman’s Five Star, Pick of The Day; while The Lazy Ant, a play for four to seven year olds, won Best Script and Best Production at the International Children’s Theatre Festival in Shanghai in 2007.
Seán Tyrone was originally a play, first performed in 2010, and is an exploration of Jack O’Brien’s quest for identity after his mother sends him to Wales to seek his errant father. In this novelisation, Mark uses his skills as an artist to illustrate the story with original woodcuts, interweaving it with a cast of colourful characters. Mark died in 2011 while finalising the text for the novel.
Copyright
Seren is the book imprint of
Poetry Wales Press Ltd.
57 Nolton Street, Bridgend, Wales, CF31 3AE
www.serenbooks.com
Facebook: facebook.com/SerenBooks
Twitter: @SerenBooks
© the estate of Mark Ryan 2012
ISBN: 978–1–78172–011–0
The right of Mark Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters and incidents portrayed are the work of the author’s imagination. Any other resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover image and illustrations original woodcuts by Mark Ryan
© The estate of Mark Ryan 2012
Typesetting by Elaine Sharples
Printed by Short Run Press Ltd, Exeter
The publisher works with the financial assistance of
The Welsh Books Council
