Gerald Glaskin

Gerald Marcus Glaskin
Born(1923-12-16)16 December 1923
Perth, Western Australia
Died11 March 2000(2000-03-11) (aged 76)
Perth, Western Australia
Writing career
Pen nameNeville Jackson

Gerald Glaskin (G. M. Glaskin) (16 December 1923 – 11 March 2000) was an Australian author.[1]

Biography

Early life

Gerald Marcus Glaskin was born on 16 December 1923 in North Perth in Western Australia.[2]

He attended Perth Modern School and served in the Second World War in the Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force.[3]

Career

His published works were extensive. He wrote poetry, short stories, and novels. Some works also included issues of science fiction and new-age spiritual guidance related to the interpretation of dreams. He was also involved in the Western Australian Fellowship of Australian Writers.

Some sources claim that he won the Commonwealth Prize for Literature in 1955, but subsequent research has disproved this, finding that he was awarded a grant in 1957 which he could not retain due to living outside Australia at the time.[1] His works were received more favourably in Europe than in Australia. He lived mostly in Asia and later the Netherlands, until returning to Perth in 1967. His extensive time overseas may have been because of the oppressive Australian moral climate of the period against homosexuality. In 1961, he had been charged with indecent exposure on a Perth beach.[4]

A resident of Cottesloe, he was enthusiastic about its beach environment.[5] As a writer in Western Australia conditions were not always supportive of the profession.[6]

His involvement with the Christos experiment[7][8] saw his writing a number of books related to the subject.[9][10][11][12][13]

His novel A Waltz Through the Hills was made into a 1988 film of the same title.[14] His most commercially successful work was a novel about a homosexual love affair, No End To The Way (1965),[15] published under the pseudonym Neville Jackson.[16][17]

Interviewed in later life about the novel, Glaskin said: "It was banned in Australia and the paperback publishers, Corgi, researched the Australian censorship laws, and discovered that the book could not be shipped to Australia. So they chartered planes and flew them in".[4] It was partly autobiographical, and inspired by his relationships with Dutch men.[18] It was published before he started his relationship with noted genealogist Leo van de Pas, whom he met in 1968 in a gay bar in Amsterdam, and lived with from then onwards till the end of his life.[16]

He was also a silent financial partner in The Coffee Pot, a popular Perth meeting place for homosexuals, bohemians and students which was established in the 1950s by Dutch Indonesian migrants, and was then the city's only late night cafe.[19][20]

In 1967, he met the British writer Iris Murdoch, who was visiting Australia. In a letter to her friend Brigid Brophy, she wrote: "...the opera house is the most beautiful single object I've seen since getting here (with the possible exception of a West Australian novelist called Jerry Glaskin, whom I had reluctantly to leave behind in Perth)".[21]

Death

He died on 11 March 2000 after a long illness.[22][23]

Works

Year Title Publisher ISBN Notes
1955 A World of Our Own James Barrie Fiction
1957 A Minor Portrait James Barrie Fiction
The Mistress Panther Books Fiction
1959 The Beach of Passionate Love Barrie & Rockliff Fiction
1960 A Lion in the Sun Barrie & Rockliff Fiction
A Change of Mind Doubleday Fiction
The Land That Sleeps: Travel and Adventure in the Virgin West of Australia Doubleday Travel literature
1961 A Waltz Through the Hills Barrie & Rockliff Children's fiction
Illustrated by Paul Rigby
1962 A Small Selection of Short Stories Barrie & Rockliff Short story collection
1963 Flight to Landfall Barrie & Rockliff Fiction
1965 No End to the Way Corgi Fiction
Published under Neville Jackson pseudonym
The Man Who Didn't Count Delacorte Press Fiction
1967 The Road to Nowhere Barrie & Rockliff Short story collection
A Bird in my Hands Herbert Jenkins Autobiography
1972 The Inheritors Mercury Press Short story first published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
1974 Windows of the Mind : the Christos Experience Wildwood House 0704501171 Nonfiction
1975 Two Women: Two Novellas Ure Smith 0725402172 Collection of novellas: Turn on the Heat and the Eaves of Night
1976 Worlds Within: Probing the Christos Experience Wildwood House 0704502151 Nonfiction
1984 One Way to Wonderland: Letters to a Pen-friend in Europe, 1938-1945[24] Fremantle Press 0909144915 Collected correspondence
1995 A Many-Splendoured Woman: A Memoir of Han Suyin Graham Brash 9812180451 Biography

References

  1. 1 2 "G. M. Glaskin". AustLit. Retrieved 16 August 2026.
  2. ↑ "Gerald Marcus Glaskin papers". Catalogue of the State Library of WA & WA Health Libraries Network. Retrieved 16 August 2026.
  3. ↑ "About our contributors". Western Mail. Perth, WA. 4 April 1946. p. 17. Retrieved 16 August 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. 1 2 Burbidge, John (2007). "Underexposed: Gerald Glaskin's fiction". The Gay and Lesbian Review / Worldwide. 14 (6).
  5. ↑ Gerald Glaskin — talks about his love of Cottesloe (March 1984); suffers bad health needing hospitalisation (Sept. 1984). The West Australian, 24 March 1984, p. 146; 26 Sept. 1984, p. 13
  6. ↑ Clary, Mike (7 July 1971). "It isn't easy to make a living as a writer (WA authors comment on making a living as a writer)". Daily News. p. 10.
  7. ↑ Parkhurst, Nicolas (1973). The Christos Experiment. Open Mind Publications. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
  8. ↑ Parkhurst, Jacqueline; Parkhurst, Nicolas H (1976). Altered states of consciousness and the Christos experiment. Open Mind Publications. ISBN 978-0-9596609-1-3.
  9. ↑ Glaskin, G. M. (Gerald Marcus) (1986). Windows of the mind : the Christos experience. Prism. ISBN 978-0-907061-81-6.
  10. ↑ Glaskin, G. M. (Gerald Marcus) (1976). Worlds within : probing the Christos Experience. Wildwood House. ISBN 978-0-7045-0215-4.
  11. ↑ Glaskin, G. M. (Gerald Marcus); Glaskin, G. M. (Gerald Marcus), 1923-2000. Door to eternity (1989). A door to infinity : proving the Christos experience (Rev. ed.). Prisim. ISBN 978-1-85327-033-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  12. ↑ Glaskin, G. M. (Gerald Marcus) (1979). A door to eternity : proving the Christos experience. Wildwood House. ISBN 978-0-7045-3002-7.
  13. ↑ Glaskin, G. M. (Gerald Marcus) (1978). Worlds within (Arrow ed. with new appendix ed.). Arrow Books. ISBN 978-0-09-918600-7.
  14. ↑ "A Waltz Through the Hills". IMDB. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
  15. ↑ Jackson, Neville (1985). No end to the way. Corgi. ISBN 978-0-552-12621-2.
  16. 1 2 Fisher, Jeremy (2010). "No end to the way: using G.M. Glaskin's life and works in creative writing teaching". Strange Bedfellows: Refereed Conference Papers of the 15th Annual AAWP Conference. 15th Annual Australasian Association of Writing Programs Conference. University of New England.
  17. ↑ "No End To The Way by Neville Jackson". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
  18. ↑ Burbidge, John (2014). Dare Me! The Life and Work of Gerald Glaskin. Monash University Publishing. pp. 135–139. ISBN 9781921867743.
  19. ↑ Darbyshire, Jo (2010). "The Coffee Pot" (Exhibition pamphlet). City Of Perth.
  20. ↑ "Hot Steaming Cup of Nostalgia". OutInPerth. 1 October 2010. Archived from the original on 1 October 2011. Retrieved 14 July 2011.
  21. ↑ Dooley, Gillian (23 March 2019). "Postcards from Iris". Weekend Australian (Review). p. 20.
  22. ↑ "Arts Today supplement". The West Australian. 15 March 2000. p. 5.
  23. ↑ "Mosman writer dies at 77". Post Newspapers (WA). 27 September 2007. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.
  24. ↑ Glaskin, G. M. (Gerald Marcus); Steunebrink (1984). One way to wonderland : letters to a pen-friend in Europe, 1938-1945. Fremantle Arts Centre Press. ISBN 0909144915.

Further reading

  • Burbidge, John (2013). Dare me! : the life and work of Gerald Glaskin. Monash University Publishing. ISBN 978-1-921867-73-6.
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