Author saves his best work for his last publication
Publishing career comes to an end
It’s the closing of the professional side of my life as a publisher and a writer. David McGill
All good things must come to an end including a Paekākāriki author’s mystery novel series. It also brings the curtain down on a long and distinguished writing career.
David McGill’s seventh, and final, novel featuring main character Dan Delaney, is out now.
The series has featured Delaney and family in various escapades around the world.
The final book, Back Home In Derry, is based in Ireland which is a fitting setting as McGill has Irish origins.
He said three things helped trigger the book, which took him 18 months to craft.
The first is that he used to work for a television magazine which took him to the Fall’s Rd, Belfast, in 1970, where tanks and barricades were at either end.
“It was quite an evil thing to put into a residential street. The troubles were just getting going.”
The memories provided the inspiration for the opening sequence in his book.
Secondly, McGill’s Irish diaries were “invaluable because I travelled around all of Ireland at that time”.
And thirdly, viewing photos during his time in Ireland triggered memories and “really buoyed me”.
McGill was pleased with the final book in the series.
“I’ve not been happy with all my books but I am with this one.
“I probably put a bit more into it in terms of thinking about it, rewriting it, and it is also quite personal as I’m also looking for my own ancestors which I haven’t found.
“This is the most absorbing book I’ve done for a while, and also the most vexing, I suppose.”
McGill, 79, who has about 60 nonfiction and fiction books to his name, doesn’t think he’ll write another book.
“It’s just old age which has caught up with me.
“It’s the closing of the professional side of my life as a publisher and a writer. And I’ll tell you what — I wouldn’t recommend it to my daughter — because it’s too hard.
“It’s too small a country but I’m amazed how much is still being published in this country. “Nobody is making money though. “Not even really successful authors like my cousin Jenny
Pattrick, who wrote The Denniston Rose, which sold well over 100,000 copies.
“She told me she made $17,000. “This is the biggest bestseller novel this country has ever known. It is being made into a film. It’s about the coal mining era of the West Coast.”
Despite the challenges, McGill has enjoyed his book writing career.
“I’ve always regarded it as continuing the journalism. You get into the habit of writing, in journalism, and you just keep ticking over really.
“I was talking to playwright Roger Hall, who I used to flat with, and we
both agreed that we could have written more if the market would allow it but they don’t.”