Today, my mother made the startling announcement that Dick Francis had just recently passed away. Despite being a huge fan of Dick Francis, I found this news far less moving than I found the news of the passing of Robert B. Parker, of whom I am only a sometime fan. I believe the primary reason I was not shocked by the news of my favorite writer’s death is that I had thought him dead for almost ten whole years.
I have narrowed it down to this, I think I read an article about the death of Dick Francis’ wife back in 2000. I read about her death in an article that discussed a conspiracy regarding Dick Francis’ writing, where in many people thought that it was his wife, not Dick Francis himself, who authored so many of his books. Graham Lord's 1999 unauthorized biography Dick Francis: A Racing Life suggested that many of his books had in fact been written by his wife Mary. For some reason I went away from that article expecting to see no new Dick Francis novels, and therefore wrote Dick Francis off.
Nevertheless, I am sorry about his passing, but thankfully, due to my mistaken presumption, I’ve already dealt with the grief.
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