In the key of Gee

Maurice Gee's genius can be traced through his appearances in the pages of the Listener over the decades.

- BY MARK BROATCH

Is anyone born to write? Maurice Gee surely was. He told the Listener in a 2008 interview, “I just feel sort of useless when I am not writing.” Gee, who died on June 12 aged 93, allowed himself little time to feel useless throughout his seven-decade career, producing more than 30 novels for adults and children and dozens of short stories. Long regarded as among New Zealand's greatest writers, his death is felt by generations of readers who grew up with his stories and by many of the nation’s writers, who were inspired and influenced by his work.

For most of his career, Gee made regular-as-clockwork appearances in the Listener though interviews and reviews, first popping up in the magazine in November, 1958. It was in an advertisement for Mate, a literary journal edited by Robin Dudding, to which he contributed alongside the likes of Frank Sargeson and Kevin Ireland. Gee would have just turned 27.

He'd begun to publish stories and would leave behind a short career as a teacher (at Paeroa District High School) and a librarian, and release, in 1962, his first novel, The Big Season, about events in a rugby-obsessed community. The book, like many of his novels for adults, contains violence, dysfunction and moments of tragedy - themes in oft-noted contrast to the author’s mild and friendly exterior.

In 1976, his story collection A Glorious Morning, Comrade and novel