It must be bad enough to have someone inform you that they have been having a clandestine relationship with your wife, without having to hear it first in public. This was the fate of the distinguished author, editor and patron of Irish literature, David Marcus, one evening late last week in Galway city.
Marcus, who has given so many writers their start through the pages of New Irish Writing in the Irish Press, may have felt that it was a bit of a slap in the face. There he was, patiently listening to the few words delivered by RT╔ producer and personal friend Seamus Hosey at the Galway launch of his recently published autobiography. Yet his features barely flinched as he heard Hosey confess.
And then there she was, the woman herself - his wife, Ita Daly. Up she came before the microphone, but for a very different purpose.
As Hosey elaborated, the subject of their illicit phone calls over the previous few days had been the surprise celebration planned for her husband by Kennys bookshop.
A ruse of "Macchiavellian" proportions was how Hosey described it, and his partner in crime was Des Kenny. It took Marcus a few minutes to digest the fact that there were so many familiar faces. As Hosey explained, it was no coincidence that he was surrounded by writers who owed him a great debt. The same writers had travelled many miles to reaad from their work in his honour.
Des Hogan had come from Ballybunion in Co Kerry, and he was joined by Rooney prize winner Mike McCormack, Jamie O'Neill, Claire Keegan, and poet Moya Cannon.
There were messages of good will from others who couldn't be there - Edna O'Brien, Benedict Kiely, Jennifer Johnston, James Plunkett, Paul Durcan, Neil Jordan, Eugene McCabe, Peter Sheridan, Lelia Doolin, Brendan Flynn of the Clifden Arts Festival, Mary O'Donnell, Dermot Bolger and Seamus Heaney.
Edna O'Brien said she wanted to wish him a "happy and bibulous evening at Kennys", while Shane Connaughton borrowed from Shakespeare, saying that Marcus had "done the State some service, and all who read his book will marvel at how much".
The writers reading at the function voiced their own appreciation: "David discovered and launched many more illustrious writers than I, but I was the one who caught him," Ita Daly remarked, while Moya Cannon described him as the "Leopold Bloom" of Irish literature.
At this stage, Marcus was sitting down, leaning against a pillar - head bent, with a shy smile on his face. Seamus Hosey, master of ceremonies, said that Marcus had been at the very heart of Irish writing for almost 50 years, and had influenced, encouraged and published so many of those present.
He had bridged the gap from George Bernard Shaw and James Stephens to Sean O'Casey and Samuel Beckett, from Frank O'Connor and Sean O'Faolain to two recent protegΘes, Claire Keegan and Jamie O'Neill, Hosey said.
"David, you have reaped a rich harvest to nourish and sustain not just the recent past, but also generations yet to come." Marcus was presented with a quill made of bog oak by artist Tony Downey, and a specially designed copy of his own book, Oughtobiography.