BOOK 'EM: Reid, all about it

About a fortnight after I took over as editor of the Herald's Books pages in the early Nineties, I was approached by Terry Snow of the Listener offering me the Arts Editor job.

It was tempting but . . .

In addition to the Books pages (reviews, editorial by me, interviews and so on), I was also immersed in the Herald's Entertainment pages and writing most of the stories and interviews. And I had my own reviews column (which had started as Jazz, became Jazz and Elsewhere, then simply Elsewhere).

The small staff – just two or three of us – would also lay up daily pages with filler pieces which would be dropped for the second edition to accommodate live reviews (quite a number written by me, I was often out three or four nights a week) and of course the design and layout of the Friday Entertainment section.

I was busy but I was loving it.

So I thanked Terry – I think the job went to Chris Bourke – but said I was far too busy enjoying myself. And anyway, I'd just taken over the Books pages and was starting to make changes which I wanted to see through.

I was surprised by the resistance I met because I assumed that my appointment by the editor should have flagged that changes were afoot: I was in my 40s and my predecessors had all been in their 60s, and the fact I was plugged in to popular culture (as well as writing serious Arts articles and interviews) should have been the signals.

But no.

The first thing I did was to curtail the reviews of children's books by the redoubtable and respected Betty Gilderdale (who doubtless didn't remember me from briefly being in one of her courses at North Shore Teachers' College).

Betty was contributing a substantial column – often half a valuable page if I recall – every fortnight (don't think it was every week, but she was there with numbing frequency).

I dropped that back to once a month.

Suddenly the Children's Book Mafia emerged with letters of outrage (all suspiciously similar in their content and language) and I believe Betty went off to complain to the editor.

The editor Peter Scherer had given me the job with sole injunction not to get too far out there and keep it popular. (This would not have been his exact words, but that was the gist of it.)

When he approached me about the coverage of children's books I noted that a colouring book of tapestries at the Globe (as had been written up with an illustration) was still just a colouring book, no matter how high falutin' the subject. He agreed.

I only ever heard from Betty again when she provided copy.

More mischief and fury came from a cabal of local authors, one of whom – Michael Morrissey, who'd a brief tenure in the features department – insisted that it was their right to be doing book reviews because that was an important source of their income. (If so, it was woefully inadequate and at best would realise about $80 a month!)

This argument came from a few corners, but I didn't budge. I wanted to get in new, younger and different reviewers because what was evident to anyone with a vague interest in book reviews of New Zealand writers is that they were often used by the local reviewer to settle scores (as indeed did some of the books) or bolster their position with the writer and/or publisher.

Out they went and in came a very different group of intelligent, informed and articulate writers who all had a viable income and didn't rely on the meagre Herald payment to buy them their next bottle of cheap red.

I had fun.

Graphic novels were appearing as a major part of the marketplace so I wrote about them and interviewed people like Art Spiegelman who had written Maus. (I was delighted when it was starting to be pulled off library shelves in the US recently by reactionary conservatives, it gave more publicity to that wonderful Pulitzer Prize-winning book).

We covered some serious stuff, my friend Guy Allen wrote intelligently about Auckland Uni's Brian Boyd and his remarkable and large biography of Nabokov and poetry, there were analyses of books about current global politics as well as local poetry collections, novels, sci-fi and so on.

I might have been the guy who wrote about rock bands and such, but I also had a degree in English, which most people didn't know.

When I'd interviewed Vikram Seth – who had yet to write his massive A Suitable Boy -- he was on a book tour of the country. I was the last person to speak to him and he was delighted: I'd actually read both his books and he said no one else in newspapers and magazines had.

The Books pages looked good, covered a diverse selection – yes I'd occasionally do something on a coffee table thing if the subject was interesting – and photography, graphic novels, local and international writers were all given fair and equal space.

And then after about 11 months it all came to an end.

I had injured my back and – dosed with massive amounts of Voltaren, black coffee and sometimes a deep inhalation of marijuana to kill the pain – I spent a few weeks on the floor at home until I could get in for an operation.

Afterwards I was off work for quite a few weeks.

In my absence they appointed someone else – lovely man, in his late 60s – to be Books editor.

The section reverted to type . . . although I don't think I ever saw another colouring book reviewed.

But not another graphic novel either.

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These entries are of little consequence to anyone other than me Graham Reid, the author of this site, and maybe my family, researchers and those with too much time on their hands.

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