About Me
Malcolm Lowry was born in Wallasey, in the English county of Cheshire, and was educated at The Leys School and St Catharine's College, Cambridge. By the time he graduated in 1931, the twin obsessions which would dominate his life—alcohol and literature—were firmly in place. Lowry was already well travelled, having sailed to the Far East as a deck hand on the Pyrrhus between school and university and made visits to America and Germany between terms. After Cambridge, Lowry lived briefly in London, existing on the fringes of the vibrant thirties literary scene and meeting Dylan Thomas, amongst others. Following this, he moved to France, where he married his first wife, Jan Gabrial, in 1934. It was a turbulent union, and, after an estrangement, Lowry followed her to New York (where he entered the Bellevue Hospital in 1936 following an alcohol-induced break-down) and then to Hollywood, where he tried his hand at screen writing.The couple moved to the Mexican city of Cuernavaca in late 1936, in a final attempt to salvage their marriage. This failed, however, and in late 1937, Lowry was left alone in Oaxaca and entered another period of dark alcoholic excess, culminating in his being deported from the country. In 1939, he moved to Canada, and the following year he married his second wife, Margerie Bonner, an actress and writer. The couple lived and wrote in a squatter's shack on the beach near Dollarton in British Columbia. Though the couple travelled, to Europe, America and the Caribbean, and Lowry continued to drink heavily, this seems to have been a relatively peaceful and productive period. It would last until 1954, when a final nomadic period ensued, embracing New York and London, amongst other places.Lowry died in the village of Ripe, East Sussex, where he was living with his wife. Certainly alcohol, and possibly an overdose of sleeping pills, contributed to what the coroner recorded as 'death by misadventure'.
