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Dark As the Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid

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about 'Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid' Douglas Day, Malcolm Lowry's biographer writes: "in early december 1945, malcolm and margerie bonner lowry flew from vancover, british columbia, to mexico city. they traveled by bus down to cuernavaca, where lowry had lived with his first wife, jan, in 1936, and where he had begun Under the volcano. on new year's eve lowry heard from jonathan cape, to whom the completed manuscript of under the volcano had been sent, that they could not accept the noel as it stood; many revisions were needed.

this much is the matter of 'dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid'. during the entire trip both lowry and his wife made notes as they went along-dialogues, descriptions, copies of signs along the way, all sorts of random obervations. some short time afterwards, lowry looked through all the notes of the mexican journey, exclaimed, 'by God, we have a novel here!' and fell to work on 'dark as the grave'.

seven hundred pages of notes and drafts were left by lowry in 1952 and not returned to before his death in 1957.

now, this book is no 'under the volcano'.