“A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave.”
-Oscar WildeRick Gekoski – Writer
About Rick Gekoski
ick Gekoski – described by Tatler as “think Bill Bryson, only on books” – is a rare book dealer, writer, and broadcaster. An American who came to England in 1966, he took a B. Phil and D.Phil. in English at Oxford, he is now an English citizen.
From 1971-1987 he was a member of the English Department of the University of Warwick, and sometime Chair of the Faculty of Arts.
He has published a critical book on Joseph Conrad, The Bibliography of William Golding, Staying Up (a book on Premiership Football), a collection of essays entitled Tolkien’s Gown and Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books (based on his BBC Radio 4 Series Rare Books, Rare People), Outside of a Dog: A Bibliomemoir, and Lost, Stolen, or Shredded: Stories of Missing Works of Art. (Lost, Stolen, or Shredded was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September-October 2009), and the novels Darke, (2017), and A Long Island Story (2018).
His books have been translated into eight languages. For four years he wrote an online column (about reading, writing and the rare book trade) in The Guardian entitled Finger on the Page.
aHe has founded two private presses, The Sixth Chamber Press and The Bridgewater Press, which issue finely printed editions of leading contemporary novelists and poets. In 2005 he was one of the judges for the Man Booker Prize, and was then Chair of the judges for the Man Booker International Prize 2011, which was awarded to Philip Roth. He taught Creative Non-Fiction for the Arvon Foundation, and sat on their Development Board.
He is a former Trustee and Member of the Board of English PEN, and was elected an Honorary Vice-President of that body in 2014, for his work organizing and curating an auction of annotated first editions by famous writers, held at Sotheby’s in May 2013. Entitled First Editions, Second Thoughts, the auction raised over £439,200 to further the work of English Pen. Highlights included annotated first editions by Julian Barnes, Quentin Blake, Kazuo Ishiguro, JK Rowling, Colm Toibin, and Jeanette Winterson, amongst many others. https://www.englishpen.org/events/highlights-from-the-first-editions-second-thoughts-auction/
He lives in Salisbury, is married to Belinda Kitchin and has two children, Anna who is a forensic psychologist, and Aaron (‘Bertie’) who is a wildlife photographer and campaignercand online TV presenter (www.aarongekoski.com).
Literary Agent: Peter Straus, of Rogers, Coleridge and White. More details
Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Gekoski
Latest Title – A Long Island Story
A Long Island Story: Release date July 5, 2018
About A Long Island Story
Rick Gekoski’s follow up to his critically acclaimed debut, Darke, is a novel about 1950s America, a marriage in crisis, and a family falling apart at the seams.
It is 1953, a heat wave is sweeping across America and the Grossmans – Ben, Addie and their two children –are moving their lives from the political heart of Washington DC to suburban Long Island. Benny was a successful lawyer in the Department of Justice, but all that has come tumbling down. With the McCarthy era of paranoia, persecution and propaganda at its height, his past has come back to haunt him, forcing him to pack up his family and leave the capital behind.
With their future uncertain, life in Long Island starts to open old wounds for Ben and Addie, both start to wonder if they were meant for more, whether their future might look different than they planned, and whether their marriage – their family – is worth fighting for …
A Long Island Story is a portrait of a marriage in crisis, of a unique and fascinating period in US history and of a seemingly perfect family fighting their demons behind closed doors.
AVAILABLE IN HARDBACK, EBOOK, and DOWNLOADABLE AUDIO
Amazon UK – Hive – Waterstones – Amazon US
More from Canongate
Timeline
– Huntington (Long Island) ex-pat, author Rick Gekoski, speaks and signs copies of his new novel, A Long Island Story.
August 8, 2018 – 5pm: ‘BookHampton’ 41 Main Street, East Hampton, NY 11937
– Rick Gekoski speaks about and signs copies of his new novel, A Long Island Story.
July 5, 2018: Canongate Publish Rick’s New Novel – A Long Island Story
Some Reviews and Responses
‘In A Long Island Story Gekoski turns a forensic eye on the subtlest nuances of family life and, in the process, introduces us to the fears, desires, and compromises of a generation. This is a deeply honest portrait of life, the big and the small of it, the sorrows and the joys’
REBECCA F. JOHN, COSTA – SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE HAUNTING OF HENRY TWIST
‘Rick’s new novel is amongst many things a remarkable exploration of family and their complicated relationships. Rick’s skills as a novelist are many. We first saw these on display in his terrific debut, Darke, a troubling, mordant, misanthropic masterpiece that revealed Rick as a writer able to plumb the depths of human behaviour with electrifying effect.
On the face of it, ALIS could not be more different yet both books ask searching questions about what it means to be human, the sacrifices we inevitably have to make and the redemptive possibilities of love.
In certain respects ALIS is an old-fashioned novel, and certainly it is set in what seems like a very distant time. And the writers it brings to my mind are dead American ones from the last century that include Richard Yates, Wallace Stegner and John Williams. Yes it is that good. Yet the themes it deals with are timeless, eternal and relevant.
At Canongate we are enormously proud to publish Rick. And I love him as a friend as well as a writer. And we hope this beautiful, poignant book reaches the wide audience it deserves.
It all starts here. Buy the book, read it and spread the word!!’
JAMIE BYNG, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF CANONGATE BOOKS
(from the launch party on July 4 at Daunt Books, Chelsea)
‘What Gekoski brings … is subtlety and restraint, crafting an affectionate portrait of Jewish family life across generations. A quiet story, it’s economically told and freighted with resonant themes.’
MAIL ON SUNDAY
‘A Long Island Story is an enjoyable read. Gekoski has a good feel for the place and time he grew up in and there’s enough suspense to keep you turning the pages’
THE JEWISH CHRONICLE
‘Impeccably acute about people’
The Times
Darke: First published in February 2017
DARKE released in the US November 8, 2017
About DARKE
Dr James Darke has expelled himself from the world. He writes compulsively in his ‘coming of old age’ journal; he eats little, drinks and smokes a lot.
Meditating on what he has lost – the loves of his life, both dead and alive – he tries to console himself with the wisdom of the great thinkers and poets, yet finds nothing but disappointment.
Jenny Todd, Publisher at Canongate, have acquired World Rights in DARKE, Rick Gekoski’s debut novel, from Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge and White. Jenny Todd says: “DARKE is a stunning and distinctive novel full of living, learning and reading. Above all, it’s heart-breakingly true and wise. We are so proud to be publishing it.”
Canongate published DARKE as a lead title in hardback in the UK in February 2017, with the paperback edition due for release in the UK on 1st February 2018.
Available from Amazon
Available from Waterstones and all good bookshops.
Read Powell’s Q&A: Rick Gekoski, Author of ‘Darke’ for a more detailed synopsis of the novel.
Selected as one of The Times Best Fiction books of 2017.
Timeline
June 2018: Mozley, Gekoski and Myers shortlisted for SoA awards | The Bookseller
April 2018: Darke shortlisted for Authors’ Club – Annual Best First Novel Award 2018
March 2018: Darke longlisted for Authors’ Club – Annual Best First Novel Award 2018
February 2018: Canongate publish Darke in paperback in the UK.
November 2017: Darke selected as one of The Times Fiction Books of the Year 2017
November 2017: Canongate publish DARKE in the US.
October 2017: Darke – paperback edition due for release in February 2018
February 2017: Canongate publish DARKE as a lead title in hardback in the UK.
October 2016: Canongate acquire world rights.
Some Reviews and Responses
“Darke is a wonderfully written, ferociously single-minded character”
THE IRISH TIMES
‘I was beguiled and charmed by the vivid personality being revealed. By that, and by the fact that I couldn’t stop reading. Gekoski puts words together with a sure touch and deep craftsmanship’
PHILLIP PULLMAN
‘A wondrous book with two fathers, Kingsley Amis and Dante’
SEBASTIAN BARRY
‘Staggeringly accomplished. Heartbreakingly true. A shockingly monumental first novel’
JOHN NIVEN
‘Stuffed with more wisdom, bile, wit and tenderness than many writers create in a lifetime. In James Darke we have a hero as troubled and eternal as King Lear . . . And in Rick Gekoski we have a late-flowering genius of a novelist who proves it’s never too late to start a glittering career in fiction’
LONDON TIMES
‘Rick Gekoski’s impressive debut novel . . . Darke is both a tender and hard-hitting examination of grief and the slow, singular healing process . . . A brilliantly vivid creation . . . life-affirming and life-shattering’
THE HERALD
‘Gekoski has created an extraordinarily memorable character… This is an original and bleakly funny portrait of grief’
ECONOMIST
‘An immensely enjoyable elegy . . . done with precision and patience. I have never laughed as much at a book that made me weep so copiously’
STUART KELLY – THE SCOTSMAN
INTERVIEWS:
Radio New Zealand: Interview with Kim Hill – January 2017
Radio National Australia: Books Plus with Kate Evans – May, 2017
Published Books
