Narc. Magazine Online
Reliably informed
Blending biography with a post-modern detective narrative, Daniel James launches his debut novel this month
Scan through the website of The Maas Foundation – “the official representatives of visionary artist Ezra Maas” – and you get scant details about the man himself. It says he was born in England on 1st January 1950, that he’s not represented by any commercial gallery, and you can browse a list of works from 1966 to 2001. After that, it’s like Ezra Maas ceased to exist, gone as quickly as the strands of light that colour The Maas Foundation’s website. For most, that would be the end of the Maas trail.
Yet one night Newcastle-based author Daniel James received an anonymous phone call, challenging him to unravel the Maas mystery. The path Daniel then followed has led him to his debut novel The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas, released through Dead Ink Books this month. “I knew immediately that his life would make a great story,” he explains, “but more importantly I was attracted to the way his life intersected fact and fiction.”
The book thus blends biography and post-modern detective elements, following a journalist on the hunt for Maas through a mix of letters, diary entries and phone transcripts. What unfolds is an absorbing and intriguing labyrinth that blurs the line between fact and fiction. What’s the real story behind Ezra Maas? That’s for the intrepid reader to find out.
