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The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Maurice Gee obituary
Maurice Gee, who has died aged 93, was one of New Zealand's most respected writers. For over 50 years, in more than 30 novels and stories, Gee mapped what he saw as the violent and sordid character of New Zealand society in psychologically complex narratives marked by unsatisfactory relationships and the rigid expectations of a conformist era. His narratives about New Zealand's darker side tell of frustrated sexual desires, unhappy families and redemptive love. These values coincide in his best loved novel, Plumb (1978), about a Presbyterian turned Unitarian minister (based on Gee's grandfather, the controversial James Chapple), whose integrity and concern for public wellbeing come at the expense of those nearest to him. They are played out in later novels: the social injustice underlying Live Bodies (1998), about an anti-fascist Austrian man interred during the second world war on Somes Island in Wellington harbour; fractured family or community relations in The Burning Boy (1994) and Blindsight (2005); criminality and violent impulses motivating the small town characters of Crime Story (1994; filmed as Fracture, 2004). Gee began by mining the seam of secular puritanism and its ethic of sexual denial, hard work and utilitarianism that shaped early settler society. His first novel, The Big Season (1962), struck a nerve in questioning the social ethos associated with rugby, the nation's sporting obsession. Written at a time when sport was considered de rigueur, for fiction it ploughed a rich furrow. His second, a crime mystery, In My Father's Den (1972; filmed in 2004) drew on the legacy of puritanism in the ambiguous attitudes of its protagonist, a social outsider, while Games of Choice (1978), about an unhappy family, introduced what became a familiar trope, a cultural alien, in this case a German family. Although Gee's frontal assault on conventional morality, through stories of violence and repression, was controversial, his craftmanship commanded admiration and acceptance. In the middle years of the 1980s and 90s came what has been regarded as one of New Zealand's greatest fictional achievements: the Plumb trilogy of novels, spanning three generations: Plumb, Meg (1981) and Sole Survivor (1983). Like his contemporaries Maurice Shadbolt and CK Stead, Gee continued to expand the reach of realist fiction, through greater historical coverage, social range and psychological exploration, in novels such as Prowlers (1987), about an anti-German riot during the first world war, and Going West (1992), which explores the personalities of two characters – one creative, one scholarly – who may be seen as the two halves of Gee himself. Sympathetic portraits of women appear in the protagonists of Meg, and of Ellie and the Shadow Man (2001), about a woman who eventually discovers herself as an artist. During these decades, Gee turned to writing for children and young adults, showing a rare ability to move between different readerships without privileging one over the other. He translated his preoccupation with oppressive and totalitarian regimes into fantasy and science fiction in ways comparable to New Zealand's most acclaimed children's writer, Margaret Mahy. His first, Under the Mountain (1979), inspired by Auckland's many volcanoes, about a world overcome by slug-like aliens and saved by children, was made into both a TV miniseries (1981) and film (2009), while his science fiction O trilogy, consisting of Halfmen of O (1982), The Priests of Ferris (1984), and Motherstone (1985), has been celebrated as an adventurous and accomplished work. A dystopian trilogy, Salt (2007), Gool (2008) and The Limping Man (2010) was praised for its sharp, unsparing depictions. Gee wrote historic fiction for children including The Fat Man (1994), Hostel Girl (1999) and The Fire-Raiser (1986). His last fiction was Severed Land (2017), the quest of a girl who escapes slavery and an avenging drummer boy. In 2018 he published a memoir in three parts, Memory Pieces. Gee made New Zealand small towns and suburbia his territory for fictional excavations of dysfunction, violence and cruelty: Wadestown and Karori (suburbs of Wellington), Henderson, Napier and Nelson, all places where he lived. He was born in Whakatāne, North Island: his father, Leonard Gee, was a carpenter and boxer, his mother, Lyndahl (nee Chapple), a socialist and accomplished storyteller. Maurice grew up in Henderson in West Auckland, was educated at Henderson primary school, Avondale college and the University of Auckland, where he took a master's degree in English (1954). After gaining certification from Auckland Teachers' College (1954), he taught for a decade while publishing short stories (his key collection was A Glorious Morning, Comrade, 1975). Then, having trained at the New Zealand Library School, he worked as a librarian from 1966 onwards, becoming a full-time writer in 1978. Gee received New Zealand's highest honours for literature: the Icon award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand in 2003 and the prime minister's award for literary achievement in 2004. His adult fiction and writing for children and young adults were recognised in nearly equal measure in numerous prizes, while the award of the UK's James Tait Black memorial prize for Plumb in 1978 confirmed early on his international reach. Assessing Gee's work in The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, Nelson Wattie comments: 'There is always an awareness of living at the edge of an abyss: one false move and we shall leave this abundance for nothingness.' This implies that his narratives of turmoil might also include New Zealand's precarious sense of being a nation at the end of the world, afflicted by geographical distance and remoteness. Certainly they point to a problematic occupation. Yet, although written on the cusp of an era in which New Zealand/Aotearoa has become increasingly immersed in a Maori/Pasifika world view, they are more than stories about his times: Gee's vision of New Zealanders goes beyond history, geography and politics to apprehend universal concerns about human vulnerability, social stability, danger and salvation. He is survived by his wife, Margareta Garden, whom he married in 1970, their daughters Emily and Abigail, and his son, Nigel, from an earlier relationship. Maurice Gough Gee, writer, born 22 August 1931; died 12 June 2025
The Spinoff
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Vale Maurice Gee, 1931
The great Aotearoa writer Maurice Gee has died. Books editor Claire Mabey pays tribute. Maurice Gee has died at the age of 93. In a statement sent to media, Gee's children Nigel, Emily and Abigail Gee confirmed that their father died peacefully in his longtime home in Nelson, the inspiration for many of his stories. 'He lived a long and full life and approached death with cheerfulness and calm. He asked us not to grieve,' read the statement. 'Our father touched the lives of many through his words and leaves behind a remarkable legacy in New Zealand literature.' Since the news of Gee's death broke on Sunday June 15, there has been an outpouring of gratitude from readers and writers across Aotearoa. Gee is the author of Plumb, which in a 2018 Spinoff poll was found to be New Zealand's favourite and best novel. He is also the author of Under the Mountain, one of the most enduring children's books we have. It is rare for an author to be acclaimed for writing both for adults and for children; but Gee took both audiences seriously – he wrote truthfully and fearlessly, always – and his writing in both worlds was equally beloved. Gee's novels for adults include The Plumb Trilogy – Plumb (1978), Meg (1981) and Sole Survivor (1983) – In My Father's Den (1972), Live Bodies (1988), Crime Story (1994), and Ellie and the Shadow Man (2001). His novels for children include the fantasies Under the Mountain (1979), The World around the Corner (1980), the Halfmen of O trilogy – The Halfmen of O (1982), The Priests of Ferris (1984) and Motherstone (1985) – Salt (2007), Gool (2008), and The Severed Land (2017). He also wrote historic fiction for children including The Fat Man (1994), Hostel Girl (1999) and The Fire-Raiser (1986). Among Gee's awards and honours is the Robert Burns Fellowship in 1964; the Fiction Prize at the New Zealand Book Awards for Plumb in 1979; the Book of the Year at the AIM Children's Book Awards for The Halfmen of O in 1982; an honorary doctorate for literature from the University of Victoria in 1989; the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in 2004; the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards for Live Bodies in 1998; The New Zealand Post Young Adult Fiction award for Salt in 2008; and in 2017 Gee won the Copyright Licensing NZ Award for Young Adult Fiction for The Severed Land at the Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Gee published a collection of short stories in 1986; and in 2018 published a memoir in three parts, Memory Pieces. Gee's biographer is Rachel Barrowman who in 2015 published, Maurice Gee: Life and Work with Te Herenga Waka University Press. It is a remarkably detailed piece of work and one that reveals both the dark and the light of Gee's life. In a letter Gee wrote for the launch of Barrowman's biography, he said: 'Reading Rachel's book has been a strange experience for me. Seeing my life unroll again, or play as though on a screen, made me want to applaud myself for getting so much done, in work and relationships, and at other times had me squirming with embarrassment at my stupidities and shrinking with shame at cruelties and waste. 'It's all in the book. This is the biography I asked for when Rachel and I first spoke about it nine years ago. 'Put in whatever you can find,' I said, not quite understanding that she'd find so much. But I don't like biographies with holes in them. This one has no holes except for those Rachel has uncovered in her research and looked into with a clear eye. The research has been thorough, unrelenting, illuminating — illuminating even for me.' Many of the messages of gratitude and celebration for Gee are concerned with the sheer impact of his stories. A lot of Gee's struggles and triumphs are inside his fiction. For many, the slim, stunning children's novel Under the Mountain is a core memory. A great imaginative transference that stuck. One of the reasons Gee's story of slug-like aliens called the Wilberforces had such a tremendous effect on readers is that the danger was located in Auckland. It is difficult to look at Rangitoto without thinking of those voracious creatures turning the land to mud. Gee was always concerned with the upending of the environment and the potential for younger generations to heal such destruction. Gee is said to have described himself as 'a New Zealandy sort of writer living in a New Zealandy sort of place … writing New Zealandy sort of books.' It's this slant on home – that 'y' at the end – that both grounds his work and tilts it. Through Gee's novels we see ourselves from a fresh angle. We meet ourselves in Gee's places and in his ordinary, extraordinary people. Gee's Halfmen of O series gave his home of Nelson a portal to another world suffering under a totalitarian regime oppressing the voices of the land and destroying itself only for the pursuit of wealth. Gee wrote seriously for children: his worldbuilding is vibrant, startling, textured but it is also deeply enmeshed with the realities of oppressive and violent societies. Like the best children's writers, Gee never underestimated his reader's capacity to walk with him into these dangers and work out what was going on and what to learn from them. For many years professor Kathryn Walls taught an honours level English paper called New Zealand Children's Literature at Victoria University in which students would study the children's novels of Maurice Gee and Margaret Mahy. A rare example of academia looking at children's books to see how they worked, what they said about their authors; how they might reflect their time, and influence their readers. Like Mahy, Gee was one of the greatest writers New Zealand has ever had and he did not withhold that talent from young people. Gee's body of literature is revelatory in that it expresses a pattern of invention and research across depths and genre, never subjugating one audience for the other, but oscillating between them, using them in different ways. This pattern revealed a great respect for children's writing, and for children as serious readers, that is not always present in an industry that often sees writing for children as somehow a lesser pursuit. One of my favourite of Gee's adult novels is Ellie and the Shadow Man. It has lingered in me for years because it was one of the first novels I read about a woman living as an artist. Ellie Crowther is a painter whose work rises to acclaim. Only her canvases begin to be haunted by a figure who she calls her 'shadow man'. I have vivid memories of the ways Ellie's history starts to emerge, inform and entangle with her art. It is a novel that showed me that life – ordinary, difficult, eerie, troublesome, surprising life – can make great art. Every Gee fan will have their favourite novel. New fans have 35 books to explore and discover. In an interview with The Spinoff in 2024, when asked how he feels when he looks at his body of work, Gee said: 'I feel a sense of satisfaction and a sense that, considering all things, I've done as much and as well as I could have.' It is moving, painful, to think of Gee's work from this moment of great loss. But heartening to know that the great writer left this world satisfied and with a legacy that will live on for many years, and through many readers, to come. The Spinoff will be publishing a tribute page to honour the life and work of Maurice Gee. If you would like to contribute please contact clairemabey@
