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The first time Anton Marks ever put pen to paper, he was in third grade, Sheffield, Yorkshire and his adventure story written in one of his exercise books – with text and drawings – was doing the rounds through the primary school ranks, causing a bit of a furore. The story eventually went on to get a gold star from his head master, who recommended he tone down on the implied sex and violence next time.
Even then the confines of the steel town was stifling him and his parents who were home sick after twenty five good years in England decided it was time to go back-a-yard.
Anton’s true adventure was just about to begin.
Because he considered himself an outsider he absorbed the island completely. Its customs, superstitions, language, people and with the enthusiasm only a budding observer of human nature could.
Those experiences coloured his writing ever since but he had some challenges to overcome and some more lessons to learn.
His love for reading came from his first ever set of children encyclopaedias lent to him by a Jesuit Priest Fr Tom Ball and which set off an unrelenting chain reaction of questions. Growing up in Jamaica it was almost impossible finding fictional authors who he could identify with and who wrote not just about the subjects boys all over the world demanded but about exciting experiences he was intimately familiar with in the Caribbean. Miss Lou – Louise Bennett - was one of those Jamaican authors, he admired who popularized the myths of West Africa in the guise of the spider God Anancy and was the first person to make Jamaican patois - Jamaican dialect – expressed in written form. With her unique poetic skill and her mastery of written patois, Miss Lou wrote some absorbing short stories about Anancy’s comic escapades.
Anton found it just as elusive finding books on Ancient African history. So the young Mark’s was left wondering about the contributions his ancestors made. He lived with that persistent question at the back of his head that questioned whether his forbearers did contribute to anything meaningful and wondered why they didn’t have the imagination or talent to stamp their presence in history books. These doubts made him even more determined to find out more.
In time he did.
Still those concerns never hampered his thirst for reading not with the plethora of fantastic books and comics – namely Marvel comics – that were available from either Savanna-la-mar Public Library or the bookstores in his home town. And his love for the science fiction, adventure, horror and crime grew.
So did his love for the silver screen.
Jamaica had a thriving cinema going public who were captivated by the Shaw Brother epics from Hong Kong as well as the Hollywood blockbusters from the States. Imagine all of these influences all flung into the Dutch pot of his consciousness and you have the eclectic style of Anton Marks.
His first novel Dancehall, published by the X-Press was unique crime thriller that had dancehall reggae as a backdrop and followed the rise of a talented DJ Simba Ranking from the politically volatile ghetto's of Kingston.
Nothing had ever been done like that before and the readership bought it in droves. His next novel In the Days of Dread – a futuristic thriller - had arrived after a hiatus of five years due to his challenges with the publishing world and is doing very well. Bushman is presently available release date June 2007 and 69 an erotic thriller based in the same future London as In the Days of Dread release date April 2008.
Anton expects 2009 to be the continuation of great things as he rolls out a Charlie’s Angels type supernatural thriller called Bad II the Bone and a young adult fantasy book titled the Last Prince of Alkebulahn. There are so many stories to tell and only a finite amount of time to write them all in. But expect his unrelenting pace to continue because Anton knows he’s got a lot of catching up to do.
Anton Marks is the freshest and most dynamic voice to come into the thriller firmament for years and his star is going to shine bright.