Pat Kavanagh is dead
/I have just heard that Pat Kavanagh died this morning. This is really shocking news. She was my first literary agent, and
without her help I might not have been able to survive as a writer. When she signed me up as a client, I was living on less than the dole, and was very close to the end of my tether. She believed in me, she found me an audience, and when we did part it was amicably, for the best of reasons, and with regret, I think, on both sides. We had kept in loose but friendly contact, and I had been vaguely looking forward to having lunch with her in London again, some time... And now, damn, too late, too late.
She was a truly extraordinary woman, and will be hugely missed by so many people. Her husband, Julian Barnes, must feel cut in half. They were one of the great couples of our era of equality. It was an immense pleasure to see them together.