The Jonathan Gash Project

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Musings on Gash

English 597

Wade Thompson
Dr. Hunter Hayes
November 2, 2009

A Musing On Gash’s Lovejoy
I have to say, first off, that I have never been a fan of mysteries. In fact I don’t remember the last time that I ever read one. Perhaps it was the images of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes on television that turned me off, or that infernal Agatha Christie’s Murder She Wrote which was always playing on television whenever I was a kid. The only mysteries that I can remember tolerating were Perry Mason and occasional Matlock that my parents used to enjoy and thus was forced to watch. But at the moment I cannot precisely say whether or not I have ever actually read a mystery either. Perhaps it is my ignorance which is showing at this point, and I will admit to that. I am ignorant on several subjects, and usually if I am I choose to be because of some association with said item creates a distaste in my person for such things. So this semester when I learned that we had to do group presentations in English 597 over a subject in the crime noir area, my group picked Jonathan Gash’s Lovejoy series. At the time I didn’t mind because, like the other items on the list that we had to choose from, I didn’t know anything about it, thus making it equal to everything else. However, when I soon found in my possession several books from the series, saw the cheap paperback covers, the art, and found out from my professor that it was a mystery series, I soon became worried. Lovejoy is a mystery series, for crying out loud! I thought to myself. How was I going to handle this assignment with something that I had a distaste for? How?!
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But I had agreed, along with my group mates, to do the project so I decided to look at Lovejoy with a grain of salt. Think of it as a personal challenge if you will, but I was determined to see it through. So, with a little bit of hesitation, I plunged into the series by looking at Gash’s eleventh book in the series, Moonspender. I decided that by reading one of the middle books I could get an accurate representation and feel for them, the results of which will be found the further along into this essay.
One of the first things I noticed about the series is the sense of humor that the main character, Lovejoy, has. Though he may be a confidence man in the antique industry, which I was told, Lovejoy shows the intricate world in which he lives and works. For instance, on the first page of Moonspender Lovejoy tells the reader, “The story begins where I am making love to an ancient Chinese vase, on gangster’s orders, watched by eleven point two million viewers” (Gash 1). There are two things that need to be taken into consideration when reading this line. One, the obvious deprecating
sense of humor that is seen throughout his novels, and two, the seedy associations and social network in which Lovejoy operates within. As I look at these books to figure out what benefits they may have to the reader even I, someone who has no interest in mysteries, can see the value they have.
Now, let’s talk about those values.
Going back to Moonspender we see the character Lovejoy in the utter preposterousness that is his existence as an antiques dealer, in which a large chunk of the humor in Gash’s novels is centered upon. In the beginning of the novel Lovejoy is

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selling handkerchiefs outside that are supposed to be of Irish linen (Gash 1). The disparity of the situation in which Lovejoy puts himself in portrays the humor that is inherent in his character. I say this because the very act of selling perceived “antique” handkerchiefs on the street seems all to ludicrous and the fact that he is desperate enough to attempt such an act gives it a feeling that the author is lampooning the very antique dealing industry.
This lampooning of the antique industry is one of the central values of the series, as I was told to observe by a professor, as the series, and even in this novel, tends to depict a seedier social network when it comes to antiques. For instance, as one of the main devices in the novel, Lovejoy is fixed into being a judge for an antiques show by a gangster and his thugs who are high criminals in antiques dealing (Gash 13). This leads us back to where Lovjoy begins, about judging an ancient Chinese vase (22-3). After showing his ability in judging antiques Lovejoy is brought into a scheme with the antiques hoodlum and his thugs. But it is this humor which I believe draws people to the Lovejoy series, his cockney sense of style which permeates his ever being. One of the best instances of this in the novel is when he deals with Sir John, a person whom he owes money and services (Gash 62). Though it appears at first that the lord has the upper hand in using Lovejoy for his own services, the scandalous antiques dealer informs Sir John that he has acquisitioned a fake antique. However, much to Sir John’s dismay, he won’t tell him which one is the fake, thus risking the lord’s reputation when it comes to grandiose displays of his wealth (63). It is moments like these that show off Lovejoy’s

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surliness, his ability to poke fun at those who believe themselves above him in status or station. That is why I think this novel, along with the series, does justice to the genre in that there is always a series of beats, little conflicts, that keep the story moving along at an extraordinary rate, almost as fast as any film or television show. The world of antique dealing in which Lovejoy operates, a world of scheming, conniving, conning, and even sometimes violence, is represented throughout the novel, showing a side which most people have never known. And it is through such representation that I believe Gash’s Lovejoy series gives the mystery genre a steady, comforting feeling that can always be counted on by the reader. Though it is not the type of book that I will ever read, it is, nevertheless, a series that is worthwhile, at least for a momentary sense of enjoyment. Thank you.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Book Review / Spend Game & The Lives of Fair Ladies

Gash, Jonathan. The Spend Game: A Riveting Story of Murder in the Antiques Trade.
Penguin Group. New York. 1980.
The Lives of Fair Ladies. Penguin Group. New York. 1992.

Gash wrote several books in the Lovejoy Mystery Series. The books reviewed in this paper are number four, The Spend Game, and number fourteen, The Lives of Fair Ladies. Both books deal with an antiques dealer named Lovejoy, who restores, fakes, and authenticates antiques. Lovejoy is something of an antique diviner. He can spot a fake sometimes without even touching the piece. He lives a fast paced live style in which he is always broke, borrowing or swapping favors for money and food. Lovejoy is something of a detective who often knows clues without realizing he knows them. The answers to a riddle can be recognized at the last possible moment of hope, pulled reluctantly from memories he does not even know he has.
Both books have a great deal of detail regarding the life of an antiques dealer, scam artist, and lover. Lovejoy manages to have sex with almost every woman he wants without developing ties and is able to get by with having his women pay for both his upkeep and his business ventures. He does it in such a way that the reader understands that if he really had the money he would do it himself. While Lovejoy seems to be an antique addict who will spend his last dollar on something he feels is genuine, Gash does not portray Lovejoy as desperate, at least in the first novel.
The mystery in Spend Game begins with the death of one of Lovejoy’s acquaintances. It is a man Lovejoy knew while serving in the military, someone who once saved his life. Because the man, Leckie, once saved Lovejoy, Lovejoy feels an in ardent amount of responsibility to find Leckie’s killer. The story progresses nicely; although, the mystery is never really hidden from the reader. We can know the killers, and their reasoning, while Gash manages to keep their quest hidden for a while. It is Gash’s treatment of female characters through the book that is interesting. The voice of Lovejoy narrates throughout the entire story and he speaks often of women in a voice that while slightly disparaging also allows the reader to understand the importance of women in his life.
Lovejoy uses phrases like “Women have this instinctive ability to judge…”(29), “That’s the trouble with women.” (115), and “They glow with chemotactic radiation. You can’t take your eyes off them.” (110). Still, even though Lovejoy praises the aspects of women, he is often brutal and abusive stating “When you’ve blacked a bird’s eye you can’t look straight at them like you normally do” (87). Further, Lovejoy is often yelling at some woman or other who never seems to mind.
In this book, women admire him, men fear him if he isn’t given the answers he is seeking because Lovejoy will quickly turn to violence saying; “I decided to start by breaking a couple of fingers, one on Nodge and then one on old George.” (90). In this early book, Gash seems to allow Lovejoy to be a lover of life, truth, antiques, and women of all ages. He speaks kindly of women of all ages, especially older women stating; “That’s why I like older women. They never make mistakes the way younger ones do.” (41).
In the end, Lovejoy manages to denounce the killers, kill a few men himself, find the valuable antique and get the woman. He is a little worse for wear but still seems to be at the top of his game. He retains agility, affection for women and a desire to right the wrongs around him.
In The Lies of Fair Ladies we can see a different Lovejoy. Gash seems to loose some of the unique quality of Lovejoy’s voice, the book is more commercial and Lovejoy has less banter with himself about women and no banter with women. He no longer uses love words when addressing the women in his life. He now calls them “stupid cow”, “dingy old crone”, “silly cow”, “stupid old mare”, and “stupid bitch”.
Lovejoy comes across as much more jaded and mean spirited. His associates are no longer just people trying to make a living, but criminal instead of misunderstood businessmen and women. The narrator is no longer light spirited and the banter (when there is some) is dark and depressed. In Spend Game Lovejoy is affected by the death of his friend but he is not brought to tears. He is beaten up but not beaten down. In The Lies of Fair Ladies, Lovejoy cries hysterically at the death of his friend and takes his beating lying down.
Most of the women Lovejoy comes across in The Lies of Fair Ladies are lesbian or bi-sexual. He longs for a typical woman yet risks everything to save Connie from certain death. Lovejoy remains a hero in this book; however, when he is allowed out of the hospital, there is no welcoming committee, no party, and no one to great him at home. He must find his own cab and then goes out looking for his friends because he is certain they are through him a hero’s party.
This book is sad on so many levels. Lovejoy trusts his partner Luna who turns out to be a traitor. He trusts Laura, who happens to be Luna’s daughter and possibly the only friend he has left (although he still feels betrayed). Connie, whom he saves, ends up with another man, and Lovejoy is left friendless, with a woman he doesn’t trust, and broke. In the end, after having sex with Laura while Luna bangs away at the door, Lovejoy exclaims; “It’s a woman’s world, and that’s not my fault.” (263).
There is a twelve year gap between the first book and the second which may account for the change in the narrator’s voice. Obviously, people change within a twelve year span. Lovejoy has become jaded, soured on people and life and bent on his criminal activities. Still, the time span aside, I much preferred the easy going, light hearted, lover of Spend Game, to the less likeable, rougher, meaner Lovejoy of The Lies of Fair Ladies”.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Jonathan Gash Bio / Lovejoy Beginnings

Jonathan Gash (Cockney rhyming slang for "trash" in the sense of "good-for-nothing") is the main pseudonym of John Grant, a distinguished English medical doctor who has turned out more than a mystery a year since he began publishing in 1977. The majority of his humorous and witty fictive creations focus on antique dealer and sometime investigator Lovejoy (his full name is never revealed), an unscrupulous, conniving antihero; a lecherous connoisseur of anything old, rare, beautiful, and valuable; a "divvy" who can mystically separate the genuine from the fake; a master of inspired fakery himself; and a dealer in dreams. He has highly flexible ethics and a cheeky manner as he engages in outrageous scams and counterscams in the name of justice, revenge, and a quick profit. Lovejoy is an idealist corrupted by everyday circumstances: his life is a constant quest for the rare, the exquisite, the irreplaceable; yet, he is always caught up in villainy and murder and easily imagines the worst in everyone. Through him, Gash satirizes the pleasures, pretensions, greed, and self-delusions of the antiques world and its hangers-on, from millionaire collectors to down-and-out barkers. The Lovejoy series follows a basic formula, but there is such a variety of information and experience bound up in it that each book is a new, intriguing experience. Unlike Agatha Christie, whose stories are plot-driven, Gash makes narrative voice his driving force, with Lovejoy's anecdotes about history, antiques, and human behavior, his advice, warnings, diatribes, and antics, taking precedence over story line. In the late 1990s Gash introduced a second series, with an unusual detective team that allowed him to focus on urban England and grim realism and to effectively employ his medical knowledge (the heroine is a doctor).

Jonathan Gash was born John Grant in Bolton, Lancastershire, on 30 September 1933, the son of Peter and Anne (Turner) Watson, both mill workers. He grew up in Bolton as one of a large family of boys. He married Pamela Richard, a nurse, on 19 February 1955, at age twenty-one, and they had three children: Alison May, Jacqueline Clare, and Yvonne. He attended the University of London, where he received his M.B. and B.S. in 1958, and the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians, where he earned his M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. and became a member of the International College of Surgeons.

While a penniless premed and then medical student, Grant held a variety of odd jobs to pay for his education. Once he began working in the Cutler Street Antiques Market in London's East End, however, he had found a lifelong avocation. He carted around antiques and had them appraised by a real-life expert who, as Peter Gambaccini reports, became the model for Lovejoy. Gash's interest in antiques reveals itself particularly in his mysteries, where readers learn an array of information about a variety of unusual collectibles. Even British country lanes reveal "antiques," the legacy of the old Romans versus the heritage of the ancient Britons. Gash finds intriguing the idea that treasures abound everywhere, or, as he has Lovejoy point out in The Grail Tree (1979): "Right from our sinister prehistory to the weird present day, mankind's precious works are scattered in the soil, under walls, on beams, in rafters, in chests and sunken galleys, in tombs and tumuli. . . . I've seen an early Chinese black-ink jade cup used for tiddlywinks. And a beautifully preserved genuine 1751 Chelsea dish stuck under a penny plant pot out in a garden." Gash learned enough from this hands-on experience in the trade to be able to make his own forgeries (a practice he continues in order to make sure his descriptive details in his books are accurate). Unlike his characters who sell fakes as the real thing, Gash signs his creations and donates them to charity.

Once his main medical degrees were completed, Grant turned to full-time medical practice, but, while doing so, earned specialized degrees--D.Path., D.Bact., D.H.M., M.D., and D.T.M.H. He was a general practitioner in London from 1958 to 1959, a pathologist in London and Essex from 1958 to 1962, and a clinical pathologist in Hanover and Berlin from 1962 to 1965. A stint in the Medical Corps of the British Army from 1965 to 1968 earned him the rank of major.

In 1968 Grant moved to Hong Kong, where he served as head of the clinical pathology division at Queen Mary Hospital and as lecturer in the faculty of medicine of the University of Hong Kong. There he learned a great deal firsthand about tropical medicine. Grant grew to love the city and to have contempt for authors who researched their books on it from conversations in the Hong Kong Club. Grant learned Cantonese and used it in his professional dealings as physician and pathologist, and, as a result, attained a level of awareness of culture and perspectives most Westerners miss. This distance from his own culture made him quite capable of seeing through English social pretensions and of satirizing British sacred cows. He left Hong Kong in 1971 to become head of the bacteriology unit of the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the University of London. He also became a member of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine.

His first work under the pseudonym by which he is best known among readers of the detective-fiction world, The Judas Pair, was published in 1977 and was, he says, an attempt to find "light relief" from medical duties. He began the Lovejoy series on a commuter train to London and from then on wrote on his lap while commuting to work and to lunch. He writes in longhand in small letters, changing the color of his ink each time he rewrites, and after four or more drafts finally turns the manuscript over to a typist before continuing revisions (up to as many as thirteen drafts). He has remarked that he finds writing both a pleasure and a game. His escape from urban drudgery was to write about a rural village, and his escape from his own medical persona was to produce a fun-loving, womanizing rogue, Lovejoy of Lovejoy Antiques, an impoverished but resilient and knowledgeable antique dealer with a flair--a nose for antiques and a nose for trouble. Through Lovejoy, Gash builds on the knowledge of antiques developed and refined as he worked his way through medical school and then developed outside the trade as an aficionado. He also works in a British literary tradition going back to Robert Greene and his tales of coney-catching. Gash, like Greene, makes his rogue lovable, and, because it is Lovejoy's narrative voice addressing readers, Gash can escape into the skin of a witty, lively character, with a short temper, few scruples, and an obsession with antiques first and women second. These consuming interests take precedence in his life to the exclusion of almost everything else.

Newgate Callendar, writing in The New York Times Book Review (19 August 1979), called Lovejoy "flawed indeed"--scrambling "for a living" and "turning a dishonest deal or two," his speech "ribald," his manner "offensive"--yet "a genuine hero . . . faithful to himself," seeking the "unattainable . . . backed by a tremendous knowledge and a rapt love for what he is doing." Writing in the same source on 29 April 1984, Callendar captured Lovejoy's essence: "always broke, always hustling, always randy, always seedy and unsavory, always resourceful . . . never an admirable character . . . always ready to forge an antique, to bend the law, to lie outrageously, always managing to justify himself by specious reasoning . . . a male chauvinist . . . [without] one redeeming characteristic," but also "a true artist" and "a visionary who loves beautiful antiques more than life itself and who knows as much about them as Bernard Berenson did about Renaissance art." In fact, Lovejoy's antiheroic nature is the key element in the series. His impromptu, informed lectures on a wide range of curiosities are, of course, another important part of the charm and attraction of the novels. These lectures reveal the author behind the series character--a man fascinated by history, the arts, and human behavior and forgiving of human foibles.

Book List

BOOKS

The Judas Pair (London: Collins, 1977; New York: Harper & Row, 1977).

Gold from Gemini (London: Collins, 1978); republished as Gold by Gemini (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).

The Grail Tree (London: Collins, 1979; New York: Harper & Row, 1979).

Spend Game (London: Collins, 1980; New Haven, Conn.: Ticknor & Fields, 1981).

The Incomer, as Graham Gaunt (London: Collins, 1981; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1982).

The Vatican Rip (London: Collins, 1981; New Haven, Conn.: Ticknor & Fields, 1982).

Firefly Gadroon (London: Collins, 1982; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984).

The Sleepers of Erin (London: Collins, 1983; New York: Dutton, 1983).

The Gondola Scam (London: Collins, 1984; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984).

Pearlhanger (London: Collins, 1985; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985).

The Tartan Ringers (London: Collins, 1986); republished as The Tartan Sell (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986).

Moonspender (London: Collins, 1986; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987).

Jade Woman (London: Collins, 1988; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989).

The Very Last Gambado (London: Collins, 1989; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990).

The Great California Game (London: Century, 1991; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991).

The Shores of Sealandings, as Jonathan Grant (London: Century, 1991).

The Lies of Fair Ladies (Bristol: Scorpion, 1991; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992).

Storms at Sealandings, as Grant (London: Century, 1992).

Paid and Loving Eyes (London: Century, 1993; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993).

The Sin within Her Smile (London: Century, 1993; New York: Viking, 1994).

Mehala, Lady of Sealandings, as Grant (London: Century, 1993).

The Grace in Older Women (London: Century, 1995; New York: Viking, 1995).

The Possessions of a Lady (London: Century, 1996; New York: Viking, 1996).

Different Women Dancing (London: Macmillan, 1997; New York: Viking, 1997).

The Rich and the Profane (London: Macmillan, 1998; New York: Viking, 1999).

Prey Dancing (London: Macmillan, 1998; New York: Viking, 1998).

A Rag, a Bone, and a Hank of Hair (London: Macmillan, 1999; New York: Viking, 2000).

Die Dancing (London: Macmillan, 2000; New York: Viking, 2001).

Every Last Cent (London: Macmillan, 2001; New York: Viking, 2002).

COLLECTIONS

Lovejoy at Large (London: Arrow, 1991)--comprises Spend Game, The Vatican Rip, and The Tartan Ringers.

Lovejoy at Large Again (London: Arrow, 1993)--comprises The Judas Pair, Gold from Gemini, and The Grail Tree.

OTHER

"Eyes for Offa Red," in Winter's Crimes 11, edited by George Hardinge (London: Macmillan, 1979; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979).

"The Hours of Angelus," in The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories, edited by Edward D. Hock (New York: Walker, 1982).

"The Julian Mondays," in Winter's Crimes 18, edited by Hilary Hale (London: Macmillan, 1986).

"The Contras of Bloomsbury Square," in Winter's Crimes 21, edited by Hale (London: Macmillan, 1989).

"The Mood Cuckoo," in 1st Culprit: An Annual of Crime Stories, edited by Cody Lewin and Michael Z. Lewin (London: Chatto & Windus, 1992); republished as 1st Culprit: A Crime Writers' Association Annual (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993).

PLAY PRODUCTION

Terminus, Cheshire, England, Chester Festival, November 1978.

PERIODICAL PUBLICATION

"The Trouble with Dialect," Journal of the Lancashire Dialect Society, 38 (September 1989): 2-6.

Other Series / Books of Interest

The Incomer

The Incomer (1981), written under the pseudonym of Graham Gaunt, is not part of the Lovejoy series. Instead, it is a mystery in the vein of those of Ruth Rendell, a study of the vigilante "justice" of English villagers whose prejudices predate Oliver Cromwell; the novel pits "incomers," those not born and bred in the village, against locals over the treatment of Les Taunton, a simple man accused of murdering a local girl but freed for lack of evidence. Behind the gossip, the affairs, and the secret spying of neighbor on neighbor lurks a cruel self-righteousness that evokes "the dark days of past ages when folk were half-mad with superstition." The tensions in the novel depend on a love-hate relationship between a self-assured doctor, Clare Salford, and a hesitant priest, Reverend Shaw Watson. Their combined efforts reveal the truth and save a life, while proving that a courageous heart is perhaps more important than technological expertise. The style and tone of The Incomer are more traditional than those of the Lovejoy series.

The Mehala of Sealandings

Under the name Jonathan Grant, Gash produced a trilogy titled The Mehala of Sealandings, comprising The Shores of Sealandings (1991), Storms at Sealandings (1992), and Mehala, Lady of Sealandings (1993). With its mythological and ecological concerns, it is a major departure from his mystery stories.

Clare Burtonall Series

In 1997, with Different Women Dancing, Gash launched a new detective series featuring an unusual detective team: Clare Burtonall, a medical practitioner, and Bonn, a streetwise gigolo of growing importance in her life. The duo meet for the first time when they both stop to assist at a fatal road accident. The accident begins to look suspiciously like murder, however, and Clare's husband, an influential property developer, seems somehow involved: the dead man is a business associate, and his battered briefcase is furtively delivered to the Burtonall home. Bonn, who heads his own team of men for the Pleases Escort Agency, draws Clare into unfamiliar territory--the criminal underworld of urban England. Unlike the ribald and jovial village tales involving Lovejoy, these novels share a darkness akin to that of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock (1938). They depict a world inhabited by the down-and-out, the dregs of society, and the predators. They are graphic explorations of hard-boiled urban settings and personalities. In Prey Dancing (1998), the second novel in the series, Clare, determined to pass on the dying words of an eighteen-year-old drug addict and street person to the man to whom they were addressed, discovers he is an angry, threatening criminal, a weapons man for a gang of murderous thugs with revenge in mind.
Until this new series, Grant had, in the main, avoided medical concerns in his novels, but since he had retired from medicine, he was no longer writing to escape his daily routines and the human problems they involved.
Die Dancing (2000) returns to Gash's new detective team. Clare is newly divorced, Bonn has become her lover as well as partner in amateur detection, and, unbeknownst to Clare, the Pleases Escort Agency is the secret sponsor of her own new medical practice. While the pair merrily dance away an evening, a "fixer" for important businessmen is brutally beaten to death. The death has political implications because of the man's ties to a member of Parliament and personal associations for his similar links to Clare's former husband. While the detective inspector on the case follows these leads, Clare and Bonn follow other leads that end in more murder.