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Joanna Trollope writes
Pat Kavanagh was my agent for more than 25 years. We met because she wrote and asked me to come and see her. So along I went, to A D Peters' dark and historic offices off the Strand, and there was this gorgeous little person in a perfect suit who told me, in disconcertingly few words, that she had read a novel of mine, set in the Crimean War, called Leaves from the Valley, and that she would—if it was agreeable to me—like to represent me.
I expect I said, “Yes PLEASE”. I certainly had grounds, in the years and decades that followed, for a rapturous acceptance. On that first occasion, with the economy of speech that I never got used to, and always marvelled at, she made it plain that she thought I wrote well, and that she would do everything in her power to see that such writing was recognised and rewarded. And I'm not alone. All her authors will recognise this crucial quality of hers, this belief in them which was conveyed without a hint of gush or flattery. Instead, she made it briefly, unforgettably plain that she had confidence in you and that, simultaneously, she would never forget that all writers, however successful and established, are haunted by a vulnerability that is part of the solitariness of the creative process.
It always felt a privilege to be one of her authors. It wasn't just because she herself was clever and discerning, but because she was so fastidious.From her appearance to her taste in food, art, travel, people and music, she exercised a particular distinction. And what was so beguiling was that this distinction—which might have been a touch remote and chilly—ran alongside her emotional warmth (vulnerable in its own way, sometimes), her humour and a keen sense of the absurd. She knew—and had known—some remarkable people, as varied as Arthur Koestler and Lesley Blanch, and she wore those friendships with the elegant lightness with which she wore her subtly understated clothes. I always felt just a shade more polished, more finished, after a meeting with Pat.
I feel so lucky to have known her, to have been guided and defended by her, to have been the beneficiary of her alarmingly economical and effective negotiating skills. There are a very few people in most of our lives who leave not just a mark, but strong threads woven deep into the fabric of our beings that make up the people we were and are and will become. And that's where she'll stay, as far as I'm concerned—strongly individual, loyal and lovely and wise and funny and demanding and supportive and professional and human—and eternally unafraid of a silence.
Emma Dally, director of book publishing, National Magazine Company, writes
During the 1980s, when I was literary editor of Cosmopolitan, the women’s magazines were competing for short stories. I had the luxury of 12 pages to fill each month with stories and novel extracts from some of the best British and American writers. Pat quickly learned what I liked, and regularly sent me work by the likes of Margaret Drabble, Marina Warner, William Trevor, Ruth Rendell, Helen Simpson and Mary Gordon. She was always straightforward and honest to deal with, and I particularly appreciated the way she would ask me to 'go up a bit more' when she knew that a particular writer was short of money. I always obliged, because I knew she wouldn’t have been asking without good reason—and I was moved by her evident care for her writers. Perhaps her most inspired submission was a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, which she thought was perfect for Cosmopolitan. She was right; I bought the story. But who else could have thought of submitting a story by an 85-year-old, Yiddish-speaking American writer to a magazine aimed at 18–35-year-old British women?
Dan Franklin, CCV Publisher, writes
When I was a young commissioning editor, the most terrifying negotiations were famously with Pat Kavanagh. She was a master of tactical silence. The editor would proffer his £5,000 offer, Pat would simply say nothing, and that silence would seem to contain all her disappointment that she was reduced to dealing with someone so crass as to value her author's work so little. The deal would be concluded at £15,000 without Pat having said a word.
Over the years the terror disappeared, but there was still a sense that Pat was unlike any other agent. Her taste was excellent, and interestingly broad. She was both fiercely loyal to her authors, and prepared to entertain the possibility that a book might be improved by another draft.
One of my very first negotiations when I arrived at Cape was for Martin Amis' The Information. Pat famously was displaced in mid-negotiation by Andrew Wylie, and Martin Amis departed, briefly, for HarperCollins. It must have been an awful moment for her; she guarded her privacy fiercely, and here was her dirty washing being hung out every day in Londoner's Diary. But her composure, her elegance, her dry wit (“The ironies inherent in this outcome will not be lost on any of the participants” was her only public comment) were undimmed.
The only time I did see her ruffled was during the long-running imbroglio of PFD/United Agents. It made her desperately unhappy, especially as she was forced to work out her notice when most of her colleagues were not. Every one of her authors moved with her to the new agency and it is a tragedy for them, and for her colleagues, that she died just after United Agents had moved into their first proper offices.
Hers is an incredibly cruel death. She was so beautiful, so stylish, so contented in her marriage to Julian Barnes, a lover of good food, good books, very long walks. She is irreplaceable.
Agent Clare Alexander of Aitken Alexander writes
Pat was never to be found in the aisles of book fairs and rarely at publishing parties, which she hated. Yet she brought to our industry a grace, dignity and honesty that will be sorely missed. Never vain, despite her great beauty, this publicity-shy agent would be amazed to witness the outpouring of grief following her death. It came as a shock to all but those closest to her as she had characteristically decided to face the news of her diagnosis of cancer in private, with her husband Julian at her side.
Pat was a brilliant agent. She had an unerring ability to spot talent and an unwavering eye for anything false. To publishers and newspapers she was terrifying, having turned her natural shyness into a negotiating technique that involved fathomless silence as the unfortunate on the line would try to fill the void with ever-higher offers until they reached a number she thought worthy of response. In person an ironically arched eyebrow could reduce anyone to stutters. But her demands were always fair, and a deal with Pat was one with which both parties felt satisfied.
Pat was fiercely loyal to friends and to her authors, many of whom were both. It was because she cared that the rare defection of a client caused her dismay and she must have hated it when the departure of Martin Amis to a more savage deal-broker was played out in the headlines. Just as she must have loathed the way the break up of PFD and the establishment of United Agents was treated in the media. She was the heart of the new enterprise rather than its leader, and throughout she kept her own counsel, even when the spin doctoring of the other side added a mean-spirited couple of years to her age. Her authors never doubted her integrity and followed her to United Agents.
She felt her place was in her author's shadow, in support and not in the public eye. Similarly her integrity, experience and wisdom were invaluable to her colleagues in breaking away from PFD and setting up United Agents. But it is not only her friends, her authors and colleagues who will miss her: the publishing industry just lost its gold standard.
Kavanagh's funeral will be private and a memorial service will be announced. Please leave any thoughts and memories of her below.