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Aren't We Due a Royalty Statement?: A stern account of literary, publishing and theatrical folk
Dust jacket worn, bookseller's marks and labels. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
22 people want to read
About the author
Giles Gordon
86 books1 followerGiles Gordon was the son of the architect Esmé Gordon. He was brought up in Edinburgh but moved to London where he worked as a literary agent. He edited Drama quarterly and was The Spectator's theatre critic. He published six novels and three collections of short stories. He also edited many collections of short stories and the Saltire Society's magazine, New Saltire.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 4, 2015
Giles Gordon was better known as an agent and bon viveur, and these waspish memoirs recount a more colourful publishing world, one where the novel was still believed to have a future, and where writers were permitted to be eccentrics and cranks, unlike the spiffed-up awardwinners and smirking nominees that litter the current banal scene. Gordon’s tales take him from his Edinburgh upbringing (including one memorable homoerotic encounter that should have been left unsaid) to the world of publishers Hutchinson and Penguin, to the life of a prolific (if vanilla) writer of relationship fictions, to the world of luvvies and lunches and high-profile clients, among them politicians and Sue Townsend. Gordon’s tone is, as the subtitle indicates, stern, and a tad pompous (despite protests to the contraire), and some anecdotes fail to ignite, but on the whole this is a refreshing and amusing romp through a life lived with panache.
January 11, 2026
Ballycumber Book 2026 #1 (started in 2021!)
This is a finely written memoir from a literary agent, novelist, poet and late man of letters, which is candid, catty and a grenade from the past to be used against any present blandness. For all that, its wild partiality is often tough to warm to, especially given certain oddly indulgent treatments. Gordon makea a paradoxical sideswipe at Heathcote Williams for turning environmentalist given how he also praises Prince Philip's book he was agent for on the same subject terrain.
Gordon criticises Lindsay Anderson for an inverted anti-middle class prejudice, as directed to him, but displays a snobbishness himself in an odd attack on Neil Kinnock for wearing an anorak. That he has far kinder words, and far more words, about Prince Andrew's character than Edward Bond's playwriting oeuvre: says a lot. Even if he is rightly scathing about Thatcherism, he is too awed by power, generally, though honest enough to quote his wife's fair disapproval of his 'enthralment' to the Royal Family.
Yet there are wise words countering the smug right-wing framing of how good it apparently is that people turn more right wing as they age: itself a sadly accurate truism, seemingly. And he does defend artistic standards as a passionate aesthete, and displays a commitment to a wide range of literature, crucially including the more experimental, unique voices like the socialist working-class B. S. Johnson. He also has particular time for Ronald Harwood and John Mortimer personally and professionally, and John Hopkins for Talking to a Stranger: very different beasts, all!
There's the sense of someone, who despite being born well after Philip Larkin, hasn't ever really been immersed in the rock 'n' roll age, which he clearly has no affinity for. While he also attacks novels which are too sociological and plays which are too journalistic, he cannot appreciate anything about Jimi Hendrix being played on a Sony Walkman on a bus, in an episode which oddly evokes something of the final Inspector Morse episode, and leaves you more empathetic for the lad whom Gordon upbraids.
Gordon's deeply felt aesthetic impulses can lead to some brilliant passages, however, such as this connecting cricket and theatre texts: 'There is something in the pages of dialogue in a play, even the breaking of acts into scenes, that corresponds with the inevitable, elegiac progress of a cricket match as the shadows of a declining day lengthen.' This lyricism curdles into what is an absurd, trivial claim: 'You cannot enjoy Mozart and choose to wear an anorak.' (p. 276).
Anyway, a fascinating and telling read, which doesn't always stack up well historically. Yet, his careful, generous words about Fay Weldon, B. S. Johnson and, especially, Sue Townsend, reveal a writer and gatekeeper who in certain respects was a rare and valuable figure. It is also intensely useful for giving you a reading list of fascinating sounding novels you haven't previously known about...
This is a finely written memoir from a literary agent, novelist, poet and late man of letters, which is candid, catty and a grenade from the past to be used against any present blandness. For all that, its wild partiality is often tough to warm to, especially given certain oddly indulgent treatments. Gordon makea a paradoxical sideswipe at Heathcote Williams for turning environmentalist given how he also praises Prince Philip's book he was agent for on the same subject terrain.
Gordon criticises Lindsay Anderson for an inverted anti-middle class prejudice, as directed to him, but displays a snobbishness himself in an odd attack on Neil Kinnock for wearing an anorak. That he has far kinder words, and far more words, about Prince Andrew's character than Edward Bond's playwriting oeuvre: says a lot. Even if he is rightly scathing about Thatcherism, he is too awed by power, generally, though honest enough to quote his wife's fair disapproval of his 'enthralment' to the Royal Family.
Yet there are wise words countering the smug right-wing framing of how good it apparently is that people turn more right wing as they age: itself a sadly accurate truism, seemingly. And he does defend artistic standards as a passionate aesthete, and displays a commitment to a wide range of literature, crucially including the more experimental, unique voices like the socialist working-class B. S. Johnson. He also has particular time for Ronald Harwood and John Mortimer personally and professionally, and John Hopkins for Talking to a Stranger: very different beasts, all!
There's the sense of someone, who despite being born well after Philip Larkin, hasn't ever really been immersed in the rock 'n' roll age, which he clearly has no affinity for. While he also attacks novels which are too sociological and plays which are too journalistic, he cannot appreciate anything about Jimi Hendrix being played on a Sony Walkman on a bus, in an episode which oddly evokes something of the final Inspector Morse episode, and leaves you more empathetic for the lad whom Gordon upbraids.
Gordon's deeply felt aesthetic impulses can lead to some brilliant passages, however, such as this connecting cricket and theatre texts: 'There is something in the pages of dialogue in a play, even the breaking of acts into scenes, that corresponds with the inevitable, elegiac progress of a cricket match as the shadows of a declining day lengthen.' This lyricism curdles into what is an absurd, trivial claim: 'You cannot enjoy Mozart and choose to wear an anorak.' (p. 276).
Anyway, a fascinating and telling read, which doesn't always stack up well historically. Yet, his careful, generous words about Fay Weldon, B. S. Johnson and, especially, Sue Townsend, reveal a writer and gatekeeper who in certain respects was a rare and valuable figure. It is also intensely useful for giving you a reading list of fascinating sounding novels you haven't previously known about...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews