The legendary influence and career of Diana Gribble (1942–2011)

The coffin sat on a chrome trolley at the front of the pews. In the end we only need a box six feet by two, and how small it looks ... the imagination falters. Helen Garner, in her eulogy for Diana Gribble, delivered at Christ Church, South Yarra, spoke of finding out what ‘publishers’ were like. In 1976 she pedalled over to the new McPhee Gribble offices in Jolimont bearing the manuscript of Monkey Grip. Helen described what it was like working with Diana, and how loosely cut linen trousers recall her: the first person she met who dressed that way. The day before the funeral, Helen had remarked that she was surprised to find that she had enjoyed writing the tribute: ‘Telling the world I loved her.’ Eric Beecher, Diana’s longtime friend and business partner, spoke of the ‘cavalcade of characters’ who queued at her door: writers, artists, a former prime minister, the Aboriginal activist, young business folk, comedians. Eric noted the boards she had served on: the ABC, Care Australia, Circus Oz, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Australia Council, Lonely Planet; and also the companies she had started: McPhee Gribble, our Ur-indie publisher, launch pad for Garner, Tim Winton, Murray Bail, Kaz Cooke et al.; and Text Media, parent of Text Publishing (Shane Maloney’s Murray Whelan was born there in 1994 – Diana named Shane’s first book, Stiff); and Private Media, home of Crikey and a stable of post-print dotcoms. Eric spoke of her fierce instinct for competition and of her satisfaction in success (he once remarked that Diana’s later business drive was a kind of compensation for the financial failure of her first publishing venture); of her love of gossip and fascination with politics. He mentioned his absolute trust in her – the mentor, the enabler, the creator. Harold Bloom once wrote of a friend, ‘my critical guide and conscience’. Diana’s sister Elizabeth told us that Diana had taught herself to read at the age of three. An early rheumatic fever seeded a lifetime of reading. Elizabeth spoke of sojourns in Scotland and the Riverina and of childhood high jinks. The Glenn clan’s extensive embrace and Elizabeth’s tender speech lulled us into a morning dream of familial love; for a few minutes we sat in a sepia haven of what had been. The sentence of pancreatic cancer had arrived a little over three months previously, on the day of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and, incomprehensibly, just four months after Diana’s husband, the noted artist Les Kossatz, had succumbed to oesophageal cancer. A friend emailed in angry purple: ‘Curse the coal-eyed demon who disperses bright spirits while the dark ones thicken around us.’ After the service, people exclaimed as they met old friends and colleagues they hadn’t seen in years. I spoke to one woman who had flown in from Sydney, another was just back from London. We had printed four hundred booklets. The minister reckoned there were five hundred and fifty people in attendance – the rare wonder of demand outstripping supply. Somebody said something about Diana, and I thought to myself, ‘Yes, that’s how she was, too.’ So many different accounts. Hard to lose someone, but also easy – to lose her in a crowd of 550 other Dianas. I was one of her myriad fans, but she was my favourite audience; always somewhere in mind as I created something or had an idea. I looked forward to delighting her; I made her gifts. To misquote Fleetwood Mac, she made living fun. Diana wasn’t passive: she was the best kind of audience, the best kind of friend, with great instincts and impeccable motives. She performed the precious act of attending to you, and regarding you. She didn’t amass power by withholding; she was loyal but frank. That’s why we queued; her verdict was the prize. We brought our tributes to be judged, to win her warm but ironic smile, in Garner’s phrase. Diana passed away on the feast day of Francis of Assisi, that saint for our Gaia-endangered era, which serendipitously gives me two beloveds by whom to remember that date. Friendship depends on history and is founded on luck. The one takes time, the other must fend off coal-eyed demons. I recall her voice quavering ‘It’s just a thing’ when she rang me up about the diagnosis. There were no tickets on Diana. She was not the kind to have conversations about herself – she was of the old school in that. But she was totally new school, too. New media was her thing. One day in 1999, she turned from her home PC and waved at the screen: ‘Isn’t this great?’ she said, ‘So cool’ – Google beta with its ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button. Years ago, following a visit home, I asked Diana the same question I had asked my mother: ‘What do you think “Making it” is?’ A pause, impressively brief: ‘Making it,’ she said, ‘is having something to get up for in the morning, and something to come home to at night.’ She looked serious, and laughed.

W.H. Chong

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