obit in the Martha's Vineyard Gazette on Friday May 11
Mystery Writer Philip R. Craig Penned Popular Fiction
Series
By JULIA WELLS
Philip R. Craig, the salty Edgartown author who earned
national and local celebrity status for his popular Vineyard
mystery series, died on May 8 at the Martha's Vineyard
Hospital after a brief illness. He was 74 and had lived
year-round in a renovated Ocean Heights camp with his wife
Shirley.
At the time of his death Mr. Craig had published 20 books,
including the well-known mystery series whose likable
protagonist J.W. Jackson lives the idyllic Vineyard life -
fishing at Wasque, clamming at Cape Pogue, married to a
beautiful woman and solving twisted murders along the
way.
And while they never achieved literary acclaim, Philip
Craig's books had no need of it, because their appeal lay in
their readability, their power of escape and their keen sense
of place. The author not only created characters that were
agreeable and plots with just enough twist to pique the
reader - he always got the Vineyard right.
"How well he knew the Island and his sense of place - if his
character was driving up Music street, you knew exactly where
he was," said Ann Bassett, events coordinator at the Bunch of
Grapes Bookstore, this week.
With a new one out each year around the middle of June, the
Philip Craig books made a popular Father's Day present
(although ironically most of them were read by women) -
equally good for the beach or a rainy day.
The 18th book in the J.W. Jackson series, published by
Scribner and titled Vineyard Stalker, is due out next month.
Another book which he coauthored with mystery writer William
G. Tapply - the third such joint venture, titled Third Strike
- is due out in the fall.
Mr. Tapply this week wrote an appreciation for his friend and
colleague that is published on the Commentary Page in today's
Gazette.
Mr. Craig's commercial success, which came in mid-life,
always surprised him a little. "Writers write. They write
anyway. You don't quit because nobody buys them. You just do
it anyway because it's your nature. You have stories to tell.
So that's how I knew I was a writer, but I had no expectation
of having any life such as this," he wrote in a personal
reflection published in the Martha's Vineyard Magazine in
2003.
Born on Dec. 10, 1933, in Santa Monica, Calif., Phil grew up
on a small cattle ranch near Durango, Colo., one of five
children. The children would play so hard their shirts would
become untucked and fly out in the wind behind them as they
ran, so the ranch was called the Flying Shirttail. The family
lived with no electricity or running water until Phil was
10.
As a child, Phil rode horseback or walked two miles to the
one-room Long Lane School, where he received his primary
education. At recess the boys would amuse themselves by
throwing hunting knives at a wall of the stable where their
horses were kept.
The school library was a closet with some books in it that
dated to the early 1900s, including the Tarzan novels written
by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Over the next few years Phil read 24
of them, establishing himself as the reigning Tarzan expert
of southwest Colorado. About this time he began writing
poetry and fiction. Later, in Durango High School, he was
influenced by an English teacher who encouraged him to write
more poetry and prose.
Bad knees and flat feet kept him from serving in the Korean
War. In 1951, he enrolled at Boston University with the
intention of becoming a minister. At college he was an avid
fencer and made All-American in 1955. He graduated in 1957
with a degree in religion and philosophy. He claimed to be a
terrible student and said he had really majored in fencing
and minored in bridge and the university only graduated him
because they wanted to be rid of him. He was later invited to
join the U.S. Olympic fencing squad, but a knee injury and
lack of money prevented him from accepting. By the time he
graduated from university, his academic interests had shifted
to literature and writing.
But fencing would shape his future life. One day, while
filling in as an instructor at a college salle, he met
Shirley Jane Prada of Edgartown. In December of 1957 they
were married.
In 1962, he obtained a master of fine arts degree in creative
writing from the prestigious University of Iowa Writers'
Workshop, where Vance Bourjaily was his advisor. During
summers on the Vineyard in the 1960s, he covered Island news
as a stringer for the New Bedford Standard Times and its
Vineyard bureau chief Harvey Ewing.
>From 1962 until 1965 he taught English and journalism
at Endicott
Junior College in Beverly. In the spring of 1965 he read a
freshman theme aloud in class to illustrate some point. The
theme included either the word damn or hell - he forgot which
- and he was summarily fired by the dean, whose words he
later recalled: "You're too creative for us, Mr.
Craig."
In the fall of 1965 he joined the faculty at Wheelock College
in Boston, where he continued to teach English. On a
sabbatical in 1973 and 1974, he took his family to Europe for
the year, living in Spain and England and traveling to
Morocco in northern Africa. While at Wheelock, Phil often
took students to England for a hands-on course in English
literature. He became well known among the locals in the town
of Bath, and was once invited to play on the local pub's
cricket team. Upon his return from England one year, Phil
introduced Bath's favorite pub game, shove ha'penny, to his
family and friends, having his own game board made by a
Vineyard headstone carver. Spirited family competitions
ensued, always accompanied by a pint of ale.
Phil remained at Wheelock until the spring of 1999, when he
retired as professor emeritus of English and became a
full-time writer.
He wrote his first novel, Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn, during
noon lunch breaks in the back room of Al's Package Store in
Edgartown, which was owned by his father in law Al Prada and
where he worked summers. The fiction work was published in
1969, when he was 35. Over the next 20 years he wrote
numerous novels that were never published. Then in 1989, when
he was 55, A Beautiful Place to Die, the first in the
Vineyard mystery series, was published.
With the series Phil Craig found his niche - and commercial
success.
Ann Bassett said his sense of place was just one reason:
"Number two was the fishing - the fishing was key. When J.W.
was fishing at Wasque the joy would leap off the page," she
said, adding: "And third - J.W. Jackson is a man who
thoroughly loves his wife. In an age of shoot-em- up and
bang-em-up cynicism, to find a character that absolutely
loves his wife is a wonderful thing."
She concluded: "We'll miss him and we'll miss all those
books. I can say sincerely that the Bunch of Grapes family is
in mourning."
Cynthia Riggs, a West Tisbury mystery writer who often joined
Mr. Craig for book signings, agreed. "Phil was the most
generous person I can imagine," she said, recalling: "When my
first book was published we were at a signing together and I
was trying to spread my book out so it looked like a lot. He
had published 12 or 13 books at the time, and he would say to
people in this long line - 'If you like my books, you should
try Cynthia's too.'
"I am going to miss him terribly."
But he was not just a writer. An avid fisherman, sailor,
gardener and family man, he loved to cook and entertain - all
traits that informed his books, which became as popular for
their scallop and bluefish recipes as for their storytelling.
The exclamation delish! has become a Phil Craig trademark,
and last year it was included in the title for a cookbook he
coauthored with his wife.
He was a man of strong opinions, especially on the subject of
environmentalists, for whom he had little love, although he
was certainly no advocate for development either. During the
early 1990s when protection for the piping plovers caused
beach closures and made front page news, Phil Craig wrote a
number of strongly worded opinion pieces that were published
in the Gazette.
In one take-no-prisoners dispatch, he concluded: "Remember
when some people on the Vineyard were thinking about seceding
from the country, declaring war on the U.S.A., losing and
then living off war reparations? Maybe it's worth another
thought. This time, though, we should refuse to sign the
peace treaty until we get a clause written in that bans
environmentalists and the Bomb."
He served on the board of directors for the New England
Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and led panels at
international conferences of mystery writers all over the
country and in England. He taught workshops on mystery
writing and was a guest lecturer at numerous colleges and
universities.
In the fall of 2004 he accepted an invitation to house his
papers and other archival materials in the Howard Gotlieb
Archival Research Center at Boston University.
He served on the board of the Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music
Society and was vice president of the Martha's Vineyard
Chapter of the Scottish Society. He was a member of the
Martha's Vineyard Surfcasters, the Martha's Vineyard
Historical Society, The Trustees of Reservations and the Rod
& Gun Club. He and his son Jamie also belonged to the
Speckled Band of Boston, a Sherlock Holmes society. When he
could afford it, he and Shirley would travel, particularly to
sites of ancient civilizations. Together they visited 49
states and 43 countries.
He sang in the Island Community Chorus, played the guitar and
doted on his grandchildren, teaching them to write and to
fence.
A final, as yet untitled, book in the J.W. Jackson series
will appear around June of 2008.
He is survived by his wife of 49 years, his children, Kim
Lynch of Durango, Colo., and Jamie Craig of Edgartown;
grandchildren Jessica and Peter Harmon and Bailey Lynch of
Durango, and Riley and Amelia Craig of Edgartown; brothers
Kenneth and Howard Craig and sister Martha Walker of Durango,
as well as many nieces, nephews and cousins. He was
predeceased by his younger brother Roger Craig.
A remembrance will be held in August at a date to be
announced, and his ashes will be spread in the waters off the
Vineyard. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the
Island Community Chorus, P.O. Box 4157, Vineyard Haven, MA
02568.
Originally published in The Vineyard Gazette edition of
Friday, May 11th 2007
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 11 May 2007 EDT