Tue 24 Oct 2023
Death Noted: MARVIN S. LACHMAN (1932-2023).
Posted by Steve under Obituaries / Deaths Noted[8] Comments
News came early this morning of the death of Marvin Lachman, mystery fiction scholar and historian extraordinaire. He was also a long time friend of mine, although I remember meeting him only once. We were members of DAPA-Em together, and he contributed greatly to the second print version of Mystery*File as well as the M*F website that preceded the blog.
The blog does contain many of Marv’s reviews, especially in its early days, but these were reprinted from early mystery fanzines such as The Poisoned Pen and The MYSTERY FANcier. I asked if he’d care to do more, and he declined, saying he had too many other projects he was either working on or committed to, and he was in his 80s at the time.
I have cut back dramatically the number of obituaries I’ve written and posted on this blog, deciding to let other (younger) bloggers take care of “newsier” items, but this time is an exception, and only on a short personal basis.
For more of Marv’s many many contributions and awards in the world of mystery fandom, please visit therapsheet.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-fan-and-scholar-like-no-other.
October 25th, 2023 at 1:22 am
Damn!
That’s all, just
Damn!
October 25th, 2023 at 11:33 am
Most of our recent contact involved passing information back and forth about the passing of various mystery authors for his long-running obituary columns for CADS and the online Addenda for Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV.
The world is a lot lonelier now.
October 25th, 2023 at 1:34 pm
As we get older, as time speeds up, and everyone we know passes away sooner or later, I’ve come to feel: If the person has lived a fairly decent lifespan, been able to accomplish some of the things they wanted to do, lived the best they could, then I think we can call the life successful. A good life. A life well lived. And that’s all we can hope for. We can’t hope for more than that.
The mourning isn’t really for the person we lost. It’s for ourselves.
Like John Donne says via Hemingway:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
October 25th, 2023 at 3:57 pm
I met Marv Lachman at a BOUCHERCON in the late 1970s. Marv was erudite, knowledgeable, and funny. He contributed many wonderful reference books to the mystery genre. One of my favorite Marv Lachman books is THE HEIRS OF ANTHONY BOUCHER: A HISTORY OF MYSTERY FANDOM where your name pops up…along with a few hundred other mystery fans.
This world is a diminished place with Marv gone.
October 25th, 2023 at 4:34 pm
So sorry to hear this. I only knew him from limited correspondence and his work, but he will be missed.
October 26th, 2023 at 3:57 pm
I met Marv a few times at Barry Gardner’s house and always enjoyed visiting with him. I remember looking around those gatherings at Marv, Bill and Judy Crider, Richard Moore, Art Scott, Steve Stilwell, Bruce Taylor, Bob Briney, Ellen Nehr, Scott Cupp, and others I’m probably and regretfully forgetting at the moment, and thinking that I couldn’t get any deeper into the core of mystery fandom. It was a real honor to be there.
October 26th, 2023 at 8:39 pm
That’s quite a group indeed. It’s too bad that the conversations at such gatherings weren’t recorded and saved for posterity!
November 13th, 2023 at 4:58 pm
I’m not surprised (given what I had from him a little while ago) but very sorry. Mystery fandom has lost one of its giants.
Al Hubin (in assisted living with his wife in Bayport, Minnesota)