When we redesigned The Spectator six years ago, we spent months working on the launch issue and there was one name we wanted on the cover more than anyone else’s: AA Gill. These six letters could make you smile all on their own. They were a guarantee of wonderfully entertaining writing, gorgeous, unusual turns of phrase and, always, originality and spark. He was rather expensive; we couldn’t afford him very often. But always worth the money, when we had it. It surprised me, at first, to see that he’d phone in his copy, and dictate it. He had written it down, he’d tell me, but it would make no sense to anyone: he was dyslexic, which made the whole process harder. I always thought that this also helped explain why his writing flowed with such gorgeous distinction. That his dyslexia was a gift, endowing him with superior powers of expression.
We tried to include him in this year’s Spectator Christmas special, but he took ages to think about it and then said he couldn’t. Last month, he told us why: his cancer diagnosis, the “full English”, as he put it. But it seemed, then, that he was just starting treatment for it – the great advances in oncology often mean a reasonable chance of survival. But today, we learned that he has died.
His writing style didn’t belong to a type, or to any school. AA Gill prose was inimitable; a creation of the circumstances of his life. There will be no one else quite like him. To his army of fans, his writing was something that routinely made our world a brighter, more interesting place – and it will, as we all know, be duller without him. A light has gone out, never to be replaced.
Comments