Date: Fri 08-Nov-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: LIZAM

Illustration: C

Location: A9

Quick Words:

Jonathan-Gash-Lovejoy-A&E

Full Text:

(interview with Lovejoy creator, author Jonathan Gash, 11/8/96)

Creator of the `Lovejoy' Mystery Series-

A Conversation With Jonathan Gash

(with photo, book cover)

BY LIZA MONTGOMERY

NEW YORK CITY - Antiques and the Arts Weekly , the sister newspaper of The

Newtown Bee , was fortunate to catch up with British author Jonathan Gash

recently, the prolific and highly energetic creator of the Lovejoy mystery

novels.

Currently traveling the US to promote the release of his 19th book, The

Possessions of a Lady , Mr Gash took a moment to reflect on his 20-year career

as a writer, his experiences in the British antiques market, and the

differences between the written Lovejoy and the character portrayed on the A&E

television series bearing the same name.

How's the tour going?

The terrible truth is the public knows my plots much better than I do, but I

like it.

I find a marvelous attitude and mood of optimism here. You have the most

beautiful country - I do believe that if you didn't already exist we'd have to

invent you. I'm going to come back next year and be here for no reason at all.

Just to look about.

How does a medical doctor find the time to write two novels a year?

I'm also a pathologist and a professor of infectious diseases.

You've got to be selfish; you don't remember Shakespeare for mowing the grass.

I'm no good with maintenance. Work is work and this is play. It's a game.

There's no mystique to writing. I'm always scribbling on the train coming

home. As I've grown in age, I find myself up at three in the morning. And I

don't write on a word processor - I write longhand and I rewrite the whole

thing, jigsaw fashion. I give it to my typist, then rewrite it again, until

there are no more changes that I can make.

It's rather like taking a child to school for the first day when it's sent off

to the publisher.

You write about fakes, shady auctions and the dark side of the trade quite a

bit. Do you purposely set out to educate the public?

Yes I do. When I was a medical student I used to work on the antique silver

market and I began to get a feeling that people have a right to know. It

amuses me that they will know.

From the turn of the 1700s up to 1850, there must have been, in Great Britain,

170,000 families who could afford a set of furniture. Some of these sets have

rotted, some have been burned, some sold abroad. There can't be more than

150,000 sets of such furniture, yet London dealers sell 200,000 sets of

"antique" furniture per annum. How does this happen?

In any village in the UK you can find superb craftsmen doing the patina on

bureau surfaces like Sheraton, with brick dust just like Sheraton, so I funnel

that kind of information into Lovejoy.

I will literally make a piece at home and write about it. I like to forge

paintings - you're allowed to do this in the UK, as long as you don't make

money from them - and sell them for children's charities. I'm rather good at

it. I've done the Impressionists, several Constables, more recently Jack B.

Yeats. I could never get the hang of Turner. Lately I've turned to Dutch Old

Masters.

I'm not good with ceramics - I don't have the time. So a friend of mine does

them for me.

I find it amazing that my American readers, mostly women, will write and ask

for specifics, like "What kind of paste do you use for this?"

The principal spokesman of the Fraud Squad in London said [in a press

conference], "There are only four principal causes of crime: the first is arms

dealing; the second is the Lovejoy factor; the third is drugs; and the fourth

is embezzlement." I wrote a rather facetious letter in response, but I felt a

bit bad.

I like to explain how things like auctions and bribery are done, and writing

gives me access into this. I go to jails where people are incarcerated for

such crimes and are willing to talk.

Lovejoy has never seen an honest auction yet. I've been going to them about

three times a week for twenty years, and I haven't seen one either. I guessed

the [number of proper and genuine antiques sold at auction] at ten percent; I

asked two very august people in the trade their opinion, and they said three

percent. I think this is scandalous.

Have you gotten into trouble for exposing such activity?

Yes. One or two people have really been cross, but they back down because I'm

meticulous. I'll change the name but I've still documented the details, and I

tell them "If you want to pursue this, then in the next book I'll give more

details."

There are slang terms used in the trade which carry messages - I always make

sure to introduce a few words like that - and are heard in every boot or

garage sale. I like to blow the gaffel on them.

I don't want you to have the wrong impression - I like dealers. I addressed

one dealer gathering where they roared over [a passage from a Lovejoy book]

"...from the soles of their feet to the last hair on their head, if they were

in bed with Raquel Welch and an antique on the other side, they wouldn't even

notice her." It's an ailment.

I'm not too moral - I'm relieved that people don't mind the sex and the

violence [in my novels]. Lovejoy's always broke and weak with women; he's

grubby and dirty. They haven't shown that in the ninety-odd episodes of the

television series - there he's squeaky clean with a gorgeous head of hair,

playing polo at Windsor. But they're doing a great job.

What do you collect?

I don't. I think that if I had one miniature sketch by Turner, I would wonder

"Who has the other 99,000?" It would become a sickness. I believe the proper

place for these things is in museums or the hands of august collectors, to be

looked after.

In The Possessions of a Lady , readers will find Lovejoy, once again, broke,

homeless and on the verge of bankruptcy, but this time entrenched in the world

of high fashion. Viking Press, a division of Penguin USA, is the publisher

($21.95 hardcover).