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'Perfect couple' fall out over top authors

Publishing shocked by split of top agents, writes Decca Aitkenhead

Decca Aitkenhead
Saturday 14 October 1995 23:02 BST
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A TUG-OF-LOVE has broken out between one of London's leading literary agencies and Scotland's newest returning hero. Giles Gordon, literary luvvie and legendary gossip, has been issued with an injunction by his former agency in a bid to stop him approaching his erstwhile authors.

Gordon and his agency, Sheil Land, split in acrimony over the summer after the doyen of the London literary scene declared he was returning to his roots, and set up shop in Edinburgh.

Sheil Land, headed by the redoubtable Sonia Land, were incredulous. Agency and agent had seemed the perfect couple. Their authors included names such as Fay Weldon, Sue Townsend, Peter Ackroyd and Vikram Seth.

Now, smarting with rejection, Sheil Land are resolved to stop Gordon getting custody of the children. Last week they took out a High Court injunction barring the agent from "canvassing, soliciting, approaching or enticing away any client of Sheil Land."

The injunction is without precedent. It is common for authors to follow an agent when he or she moves (not unlike hairdressers' clients), feeling that allegiance lies with the individual rather than the agency.

Under contract, a departing agent cannot sign up old clients for three or six months; a client must give 60 days notice to quit the agency.

Ordinarily, agent and agency sit down to negotiate custody of the clients without recourse to the courts. But Sheil Land maintain Gordon was making premature and improper advances, and took out the injunction.

"I'm living some kind of Kafkaesque nightmare," Gordon is said to have told friends. He is taping all his telephone conversations, he cannot speak to the press and is reportedly having difficulty generating any income. Through his lawyer, he maintains that Sheil Land had forfeited the "restraint covenant" - their right to a grace period - when they announced that they would not pay him for his last month's work.

"The whole thing's pointless, anyway," said Gordon's lawyer, Tom Barth. "Of the 50 or so authors he acted for, over 40 have already expressed their strong desire to go with him. If Sheil Land think an injunction ... will get them to change their minds, they will be disappointed. Some of the authors have been extremely emphatic."

Fay Weldon, for instance. Yesterday she said: "Sonia's never been able to get into her head that she didn't employ the writers. She'd summon you to a meeting and say: 'Why don't you write a bestseller?' or 'You write consistent product, we sell.' You would come away laughing, it was so funny. But for Giles it hasstopped being funny. He can tell one end of a book from the other, he cares about literature. Sonia cares about assets."

When Gordon went north of the border in August Sheil Land pondered publically how any literary agent could expect to survive so far from the capital's pulse. Megan Henderson, another of Gordon's clients, wrote back to explain: "Up here, wewonder how London copes with being hundreds of miles from Scotland. You see, we don't actually consider London to be the centre of the universe."

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