Rohan O'Grady
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Rohan O'Grady was the chief pen name of Vancouver-born Canadian novelist June Skinner (July 23, 1922 – March 17, 2014), who was born June Margaret O'Grady.


Life

June Margaret O'Grady was born in
Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
on July 23,1922, to Frederick and Mary O'Grady (nee Ward) and grew up in Point Grey. As a child O'Grady wrote poetry and short stories. After graduating from
Lord Byng Secondary School Lord Byng Secondary School is a Public education, public secondary school located in the West Point Grey neighbourhood on the west side of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It opened in 1925 and was named in honour of the then Governor Gener ...
in 1940, she worked for the Capilano Golf and Country Club as assistant resident manager, and then in the library at the
Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network, and is the larg ...
. At the paper she met journalist Frederick Snowden Skinner, who became her husband, and they raised their three children in West Vancouver.


Writing history

Between 1961 and 1970, Skinner published four novels as Rohan O'Grady. Her fifth and final work, ''The May Spoon'', was released in 1981 and credited to A. CarleonABCBookworld, "O'Grady, Rohan"
/ref> (Ann Carleon was the name of Skinner's great-grandmother). Her third book, ''Let's Kill Uncle'', was her most successful and was made into a movie Let's Kill Uncle by the legendary horror-film producer
William Castle William Castle (born William Schloss Jr.; April 24, 1914 – May 31, 1977) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is known for the horror film, horror and thriller film, thriller B movie, B-movies he directed durin ...
in 1966, starring
Nigel Green Nigel McGown Green (15 October 192415 May 1972) was an English actor. Because of his strapping build, commanding height () and regimental demeanour he would often be found playing military types and men of action in such classic 1960s films as ...
,
Mary Badham Mary Badham (born October 7, 1952) is an American actress who portrayed Jean Louise "Scout" Finch in ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' (1962), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. At the time, Badham (aged 10) wa ...
, Pat Cardi and Robert Pickering. First editions of Skinner's second book, ''Pippin's Journal'', are prized by collectors for their illustrations by
Edward Gorey Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925 – April 15, 2000) was an Americans, American writer, Tony Awards, Tony Award-winning costume designer, and artist, noted for his own illustrated books as well as cover art and illustration for book ...
. After nearly three decades of relative obscurity, Skinner returned to public attention as the subject of a January 2009 feature in '' The Believer'', the monthly literary magazine published by
McSweeney's McSweeney's Publishing is an American nonprofit publishing house founded by Dave Eggers in 1998 and headquartered in San Francisco. The executive director is Amanda Uhle. McSweeney's first publication was the literary journal'' Timothy McSw ...
. In the piece, "A Certain Kind of Murder," author Theo Schell-Lambert writes of his childhood encounter with ''Let's Kill Uncle'' and his search for its mysterious author. Like Shell-Lambert,
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
political cartoonist,
Martin Rowson Martin Rowson ( ; born 15 February 1959) is a British editorial cartoonist and writer. His genre is political satire and his style is scathing and graphic. He characterises his work as "visual journalism". His cartoons appear frequently in ''The ...
, was deeply affected by his childhood reading of ''Let's Kill Uncle'' and credits the book for changing his life and influencing his choice of career. As a result of the ''Believer'' article, ''Let's Kill Uncle'' was reprinted by
Bloomsbury Publishing Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. Bloomsbury's head office is located on Bedford Square in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a US publishing office located in ...
in 2010 with an endorsement from
Donna Tartt Donna Louise Tartt (born December 23, 1963) is an American novelist. She wrote the novels '' The Secret History'' (1992), '' The Little Friend'' (2002), and ''The Goldfinch'' (2013), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was adapted into ...
; it was released the following year in the United States. The 2014 Spanish edition, ''Matemos al tio'', features a reproduction of the original ''Let's Kill Uncle'' cover drawn by
Edward Gorey Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925 – April 15, 2000) was an Americans, American writer, Tony Awards, Tony Award-winning costume designer, and artist, noted for his own illustrated books as well as cover art and illustration for book ...
in 1963. Skinner's books, which are often set in her native British Columbia, are characterized by a strong gothic streak and a tendency to dismiss genre conventions. For example, though she commonly features child protagonists, she subjects them to both emotional intensity and physical violence rarely found in "young adult" novels. This has been attributed in part to Skinner's independence from the larger literary culture. She did not publish her first book until she was nearly 40, and she did her writing alone in suburban West Vancouver while raising three children. Literary scholar Rebecca A. Brown examines ''Let's Kill Uncle'' in the context of black comedy, gothic tropes, and popular culture in her chapter, "Murderous Misfits and Misguided Mentors in Rohan O'Grady's ''Let's Kill Uncle''." Fiction critic Zach Vasquez notes that the novel's "dark whimsy and macabre charm is offset by a cutting and unsentimental look into the psychology of children, as well as the moral compromises we make as adults." A popular metal band from Perth, Australia, named itself "Let's Kill Uncle" after the movie, and British singer-songwriter
Morrissey Steven Patrick Morrissey ( ; born 22 May 1959), known :wikt:mononym, mononymously as Morrissey, is an English singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the frontman and lyricist of rock band the Smiths, who were active from 1982 to 198 ...
was also inspired by the film to name his 1991 solo album,
Kill Uncle ''Kill Uncle'' is the second solo studio album by the English alternative rock singer Morrissey, released on 4 March 1991 by EMI Records and His Master's Voice. The title comes from the black comedy film '' Let's Kill Uncle'' (1966). Recording ...
. The film was re-released in 2020 by
Kino International The Kino International is a film theater in Berlin, built from 1961 to 1963. It is located on Karl-Marx-Allee in former East Berlin. It hosted premieres of the DEFA film studios until the Berlin Wall#The Fall, fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. T ...
. ''Pippin’s Journal'' was re-issued in 2024 and ''Bleak November'' in 2025, both by
Valancourt Books Valancourt Books is an independent American publishing house founded by James Jenkins and Ryan Cagle in 2005. The company specializes in "the rediscovery of rare, neglected, and out-of-print fiction", in particular gay titles, Gothic novels a ...
. Skinner's literary papers are held by Special Collections and Rare Books: Manuscript Collections,
Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a Public university, public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It maintains three campuses in Greater Vancouver, respectively located in Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, British Columbia, Surrey, and ...
, Burnaby, B.C.SFU Special Collections
/ref>


Bibliography

* ''O'Houlihan's Jest'', MacMillan, New York 1961. Gollancz, London, 1961. * ''Pippin's Journal; Or, Rosemary Is for Remembrance'', MacMillan, New York, 1962. Gollancz, London, 1962. (Also published as ''The Curse of the Montrolfes'' and ''The Master of Montrolfe Hall''.) * ''Let's Kill Uncle'', MacMillan, New York, 1963. Longmans, London, 1964. Bloomsbury, London, 2010. Bloomsury, New York, 2011. * ''Bleak November'', Dial Press, New York, 1970. Michael Joseph, London, 1971. * ''The May Spoon'', Beaufort, New York, 1981. Methuen, London, 1984. (As A. Carleon.)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OGrady, Rohan 20th-century Canadian women writers Canadian women novelists Writers of Gothic fiction 1922 births 2014 deaths 20th-century Canadian novelists 20th-century pseudonymous writers Pseudonymous women writers