Alan Bradley (1938-2026)

On my cousin, the creator of Flavia de Luce

The world knows Alan Bradley (1938-2026) as the creator of Flavia de Luce, protagonist of 11 mystery novels, starting with Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (2009). The 12th title is set to be released later this year.

I know Alan as my father’s childhood playmate. My grandmother was Alan’s father’s sister. Alan was my first cousin once removed, to get technical. Alan’s Wikipedia page says, “When Bradley was a toddler, his father left the family and his mother raised the children alone.”

This is certainly true, but when Joe left home, initially, it was to join the Royal Canadian Air Force as a radio operator, and he was sent to British Columbia. By the time the war ended, Alan was no longer a toddler. And as Alan related in his memoir, The Shoebox Bible (2006), Joe came (briefly) back to Ontario, then returned to BC — and this is the last time Alan saw him.

I have in my possession letters Joe wrote to my grandmother in those years (I scanned them and shared them with Alan). In The Showbox Bible, Alan writes that his aunt, my grandmother, told him once that Joe used to call her late at night and lament how he had ruined his life. For many years, no one knew what happened to Joe. There were conflicting stories about why he left. In 2019, I visited his gravesite in Burnaby, BC. He died in 1968 four days before I was born.

I first me Alan in 1981, when my Toronto-based family took a long westward trek. Alan was living in Saskatoon. I was 12. I don’t remember much.

Then in 1992-94, I lived in Saskatoon myself. My father said I would meet up with Alan. He invited me over, and I remember sharing his couch with an extremely large Siamese cat who clearly wanted nothing to do with me. Alan advised me to be cautious, and I blustered that I was good with cats. No problem. But it is one of the few times in my life when a cat frightened me. I turned away and ignored it and escaped with my life.

I was in Saskatoon for two years, but that was the only time Alan and I met, and he would soon retire from the University of Saskatchewan and move to BC himself, intent on writing.

No one could have predicted how well that would go.

As it states on his agent, Denise Bukowski’s site: “The eleven books in the Flavia de Luce series have sold over six million copies worldwide and are presently published in thirty-nine countries and thirty-six languages.”

See also the Penguin Random House obituary for Alan, which notes:

Bradley’s final Flavia de Luce novel and the twelfth in the series, Numb Were the Beadsman’s Fingers, will be published by Doubleday Canada on November 3, 2026. The film adaptation of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, titled Flavia, directed by Bharat Nalluri and starring Molly Belle Wright, Martin Freeman, Jonathan Pryce, and Toby Jones, will be released later this year. Bradley was able to see a final cut of the film and had previously been able to visit the set during production and noted it as a highlight of his life.

I saw Alan in 2010 and sat with him and my father one evening at the Top of the Senator, listening to them share old stories and consider family gossip. Some of the Flavia books call out the Bryson family in the acknowledgments.

Here’s a photo of my father and Alan as toddlers.

I saw Alan for the last time in 2016, when he came for dinner at Miriam Toews’s house, though Miriam wasn’t there. I know that sounds like a name drop, but we were there because my parents were friends with Miriam’s mother, who was a fan of Alan’s writing.

Alan was kind enough to sign this book to “my cousin and fellow author.” He could have noted how we shared the Bradley trait of male pattern baldness. LOL. Though that is more obvious now than it was 10 years ago.

By 2016, Alan was mentioning the possibility of a Flavia movie, or TV series. He had resisted giving permission because he didn’t want to lock Flavia into a single image. As noted above, though, he was reportedly pleased by the upcoming production.

After my father died in 2017, I exchanged emails with Alan. I asked him for memories of his childhood with my father and grandparents. One memory he had was of playing silly games with my father in the family living room as my grandfather sat in the corner with his newspaper. Alan remembered my grandfather being a quiet soul who tolerated the noisy children with patience and humour. He described him along the lines that Flavia’s father is described in the novels, but I’m not making any claim.

My late uncle John, however, was adamant that Flavia’s family was based on Alan’s family. That, in fact, Alan was Flavia. They both had two older sisters. My uncle John said Flavia’s sisters were described as he remembered Alan’s sisters. Both Flavia and Alan had a missing parent: Joe for Alan, mother for Flavia. Flavia’s parents also had mysterious jobs in WWII. Joe’s WWII job was no mystery, but it may well have seemed that way to young Alan.

I have listened to the entire Flavia series published to date, but I did so in perhaps a way that few other readers did. Solving the murders was cool, sure. But I was self-conscious to the evolving reveal of the details about the family, which get darker as the series goes on. Flavia, of course, also ages. At the beginning, she is a perky child, but then the dreaded event gets closer and closer. Puberty. Childhood magical thinking starts to give way to adult clarity.

You’ve felt that, adult clarity? More like, collapse into uncertainty.

Nostalgia for a lost past plays heavy in the Flavia series, as it does in many of our lives. Legacy of loss is ever present. Flavia, it is well acknowledged, is remarkable for her intelligence, her chemical genius, but perhaps most of all for her tenacious life force. Alan is quoted repeatedly saying how Flavia just demanded to be heard.

The CBC website’s obituary about Alan included this:

In a 2013 interview on The Next Chapter, Bradley shared that Flavia was so alive in his mind, that when he wrote, she would often surprise him.

“I’m almost ashamed to admit that she makes me laugh out loud because I don’t know what she’s going to do or what she’s going to say,” he said. “She just does it and I laugh and jot it down ... My wife Shirley will be sitting in the next room or at the other end of the same room and she’ll say, ‘Flavia’s just done something outrageous.’”

It’s Flavia’s energy and curiosity that allows her to solve mysteries and catch the details that the adults miss.

“There is a sense of wonder I can remember from being 11,” Bradley said. “You are absolutely invincible. It’s that age where you think that you can build a glider out of bed sheets and jump off the castle wall and you won’t get hurt. You can do anything.”

But 11 turns quickly to 13 — and then, you know the rest.

The arc of the series is Flavia learning more and more about the realities of her parents’ lives and the complexities of the world beyond her, ahem, privileged estate.

This is one thing Alan certainly didn’t share with Flavia, an aristocratic homestead, though he may have daydreamed about it. He was a ferocious reader. His final Facebook post was about how he had finally got around to Moby Dick (1851), and why had he waited so long: “What a sumptuous feast!”

I look forward to more of this aging Flavia in the coming title, this fall. I suspect, though, that the theme will remain: You can’t go home again (until you do).

Rest in peace, Alan. We’ll be reading (and watching) Flavia for years to come!

ADDENDUM

When I went to Joe’s grave in 2019 (with my nephew), we had a hard time finding the grave because the brass row markers had been removed a week earlier. By removed, I mean stolen. We had to ask the groundskeeper how to identify the coordinates we were looking for, and he told us about the crime. Afterwards, I sent Alan photos from that day and asked if he knew anybody who could investigate this mystery. He said, “I’ll put Flavia on the case!”