Dear Gary,
Today I got the Mad Martins and I cannot tell you how
happy I am. This is such a magnificent project and I am unable to thank
you enough. The book is stunning, the music outstanding and the whole
concept I find amazing. I first came across the Martin brothers
completely by chance. My daughter was in Durham University. I live in
London but we are Irish. Once I drove up to Durham to pick her up and
bring her with me to Scotland to get the ferry.
We drove to
Stranraer along Hadrians Wall essentially, and as we drove through
Hexham, I began to wonder aloud at its etymology. I wondered if it had
any relationship with hex, and therefore witchcraft. Trea, my daughter,
googled it and found in the Wikipedia page a list of people from
Hexham. One name stood out, Jonathan Martin ( arsonist). We looked up
one after another of these brothers. We were instantly fascinated. Although I was wrong about the magic etymology, there was some kind of
magic involved because my daughter and I are still under the spell of
these extraordinary brothers, as you so clearly are as well. Since then
I have tried to get my hands on anything that deals with them. Without
any doubt this is the finest thing I have seen about them. Congratulations to you and everyone involved with the project. You have
done your subjects full justice and a real service. When you look
around you and see the runaway success of the most egregious rubbish and
the signal failure of such high quality work as this to make any
significant impact, I fear we are still in a world which the brothers
would have recognised. A world where genius is not recognised.
You have produced a work of genius. Thank you.
(Paul McAuley, Martin Brothers afficionado).