Michael Gifkins, literary agent, editor and author, died on Monday night.
His long-time friend and colleague Geoff Walker remembers him here and reminds us that before Michael became a literary
eminence he had been a fisherman, wharfie and stonemason and then taught at
Auckland University. I might add that he also wrote an excellent column of
book-trade gossip for the Listener. He
was a wicked gossip.
My copy of his first
short-story collection After the
Revolution (Longman Paul) is enscribed for me and dated 29 November 1982.
That was from the book launch, which is where we first met. There is a line in
the title story I have always remembered, in a scene from a game of tennis:
She paused to hitch a collapsing sock, and Antony’s gaze was rewarded by a pair of delicate olive legs, and the poignant marbling of a varicose vein behind one slender knee.
Observant, sensual, witty and
with a hint of cruelty. That was Michael. At least, the first three attributes
were. The hint of cruelty, in my
experience, was not in the life but in the writing and was one element that
gave it a distinctive edge in New Zealand writing at the time.
There were two more
collections of short fiction, Summer is
the Côte d’Azur (Penguin) in 1987 and The
Amphibians (Penguin) in 1989. He had been writer in residence at Auckland
University in 1983 and then Menton fellow in 1985, when many if not most of
these stories were written. There was “Providing
Intelligence” in Sport 6 and “Romancing
Alison Holst” in Sport 8 but as far as I know that was it for publication.
Soon after Michael returned
from Menton, so probably 1986, in the upstairs bar at what is now the Mercure hotel
we had a drink. Possibly two or three. He talked of writing a book of essays.
He would have started it: I wish he had finished and published it. He was a clear,
bracing thinker about New Zealand culture, its place in the world and the
internal relations within it. His view was very different from, say, Michael
King’s, but was just as thoughtful, informed and considered.
So I always enjoyed talking with him. He was so smart, so urbane,
so sophisticated and with a hint of wickedness. And always high-grade gossip. I
didn’t know quite anyone like him. How
did Westlake college produce this?
When I told Elizabeth Smither that he had died, she replied:
Michael was the equivalent in the literary world of Peter McLeavey in the visual arts. He and Peter invented themselves, down to the smallest details, but they brought high standards and the flavour of something different and better.
He was a brilliant editor of
fiction: he told me about one famous author’s award-winning novel that he still
had shoeboxes full of ditched chapters from it.
And then he became a literary
agent and was brilliant at that too. Just ask Lloyd Jones. Friends of mine
asked him to represent them: he was kind and courteous in declining to do so
if, to be coarse, he couldn’t see a buck in it. He put many, many hours into
manuscripts he could see a buck in.
Ming Cher’s Spider Boys, for example,
which he worked on for so long and which was nearly made into a movie. And then
came Lloyd Jones’s Mr Pip. Ka-ching!
That first book of Michael’s
was a deal too: from memory, he presented the publisher with a package of
edited text, type-design and cover art, so all the publisher had to do was press
the print button and distribute it. Canny as: a lower cost for the publisher,
so a higher return for the author. This is not so different from the
self-publishing that authors do on Amazon now. Michael was years ahead of his
time.
He was very good to me – he
sent me editing jobs he had been offered when he had moved on from that, and was
always very generous with his time. I spent many years advising members of the
NZ Society of Authors on publishers’ contracts and whenever I got stuck I would
consult the expert. Every time, Michael sent a long email explaining the
technicalities of particular clauses. There are well over a dozen New Zealand
authors who unknowingly received free advice from our top agent.
But what I remember most is
his charm. He really made you feel that he was delighted to see you. His face
lit up. He was a great networker so would eventually move on to someone more
interesting, attractive or useful, but until then you were given major charm.
As you can see in that photo
above (click on it for a larger version). I was going to crop it so it was just Michael but I have left it entire
to show him in typical convivial context, surrounded by writers. This was an
evening at the Frank Sargeson house in Takapuna in the late 1980s or early 90s.
That’s Lisa Greenwood foreground left; Caroline Ireland and Elizabeth Caffin on
the right; and in the centre is Michael, typically delighted to be talking to
whoever the obscured woman is. It is a classic Michael Gifkins expression and
that is how I will remember him.