It’s interesting to read the obituary for How Did Shain Gandy Die, because we know that he was an incredibly talented writer. In fact, he was so good at writing that when he left the industry that he was considered one of the most accomplished and respected authors in the English language. But was he a great writer? Well, no, not really. His achievements are more in entertainment than in composing, but I will say that it was his ability to pen stories of tremendous depth that made him stand out from the rest.
When he was young – Gandy was a bright and mischievous student who often wrote for his father, an experienced journalist. He was always good at finding stories and writing about them, but it appears that his interest in writing kept him from going to college. After graduating from High School, he briefly worked as a magazine writer, but soon after, he decided that he wanted to be a novelist instead.
Gandy moved to Southern California – where he worked on assignments for various magazines including Reader’s Digest and Saturday Night Live. While he found work in this field, his real love was mystery and murder mysteries, specifically the murder mysteries that he had always longed to write. One of his earliest stories was about a merchant’s daughter who disappeared while swimming with her friend in a lake. It was later discovered that she had been drowned in the water.
This story was turned into a book called The Fall of San Diego: It was to be his breakthrough, and would feature his real age (which was still young at the time), and he used his real name, Shannen Gandy. From there, he gained a reputation as an author whose work was getting attention for its thrilling, even suspenseful, mystery stories. The appeal of Gandy’s stories was that he took mystery to the level of art.
Gandy is well known for his illustrations – many of which are included in some of his more recent books. His life story is also very interesting. He had many beautiful childhood memories, and many of these were captured in his work. We see these memories not only in the intricate paintings that he designed, but in the simple everyday drawings that are on his album covers, posters, and coffee mugs.
How Did Shain Gandy Die? is a fascinating look into the mind of a mystery writer. Gandy created many memorable characters, and was definitely a master at telling the twist ending.
His imagination was vast, and he managed to create memorable characters who would be familiar to many of today’s readers.