Remembering Esmond Harmsworth

Friends: I wrote the following to honor my friend and literary agent, Esmond Harmsworth. Please share it with anyone who knew him or who you think might enjoy reading this.

My literary agent of nearly twenty years, Esmond Harmsworth, died unexpectedly in his sleep this spring while vacationing in Mauritius with his husband and two young children. He was 57 years old.

It was shocking to receive the call from his longtime business partner, Todd Shuster, whom I’ve known for years but would have had little reason to reach me on my mobile phone. I grasped immediately his tragic purpose the moment the words “I’m sorry” emerged from his mouth. There would be a memorial service this summer on the East Coast, Todd told me. I promised him I would try to be there, and we consoled one another on the loss of our friend and colleague.

I did make it to Esmond’s memorial in mid-July, in Newport, R.I., on an exquisitely beautiful evening at a posh beach club on a quiet cove along the Atlantic Ocean. The scene was very Esmond: glamorous but not pretentious, elegant without being stuffy—and full of love. Four hundred or so nattily dressed family members, friends, and business associates, including a handful of clients like me, gathered under a white tent as seagulls lazily dived and soared, waves gently lapping the shore.

I went simply to honor Esmond, to make sure his husband and other loved ones knew how much he had meant to me. I came away feeling blessed for having been one of the many people whose lives he touched, and also for being reminded of the importance of friendship and joy, and that our careers encompass relationships that bring us both. By attending this most intimate celebration of someone I knew mostly professionally, I managed to learn about many facets of his life—his decency, his generosity, his love of reading, and also his mischievousness, a side of Esmond I never saw.

The service began with a performance of the Mozart aria, Ruhe sant, mein holdes Leben, or “rest peacefully my beloved.” I needed to Google the translation from the German afterward, but I am guessing Esmond already would have known it because I learned that he was a lover of music, particularly opera. I found out that he was a champion bridge player and an activist for marriage equality, a fan of burlesque and of practical jokes.

As a boy, Esmond’s mother implored him not to say curse words and then, knowing her precocious son, taught him that one such word was “barbecue.” Shortly after that, presented to a group of her friends, young Esmond blurted out: “Barbecue!”

I’m told Esmond had been full of life and in good health. Just before bedtime on the night he died he had a chocolate and told Jerome he was being “naughty” for doing so.  I can hear him saying it in his British-American accent, an unrepentant twinkle in his eye.

A bittersweet joy of attending Esmond’s memorial was hearing accounts of the many writers, like me, he had helped, often simply by listening, but also by being a fierce advocate for them. Esmond believed in his writers, whose books ranged from literary fiction to self-help to business to memoir. He found many of them the same way he found me, by writing an email after reading a magazine article I’d written and asking if I’d like to turn it into a book. (I didn’t, but having met Esmond I was committed to working with him when a book project came along, which one did a few years later.)

Todd shared stories of Esmond’s passion for his clients. These included the one I had emailed Todd, about how, despite being a financial journalist with two business books under my belt, I told Esmond I wanted to write a biography of the political journalist William Safire. Esmond believed in me, and he supported my desire to swim outside my lane. He set out to help me sell the book, and we did. I had told Todd—and he proceeded to tell the audience—that I promised myself that I would finish that somewhat-delayed biography and that I would dedicate it to Esmond’s memory.

When Esmond’s daughter was born I teased him that he was a bit old to be a father. I was quite aware of Esmond’s age because he was born a few months after I was. I often took great satisfaction at having an exact contemporary for an agent. I assumed we would grow old together, and that he would be the only agent I’d ever need. He chafed in his genial way at my ribbing, reminding me that his father was much older when Esmond was born than he was now.

His father, born in 1898, was the press baron and politician Esmond Cecil Harmsworth, 2nd Viscount Rothermere, and Esmond’s American mother was the great man’s third wife. Esmond neither shied away from nor drew attention to the fact that he came from a famous and wealthy British family. (His full name and title, printed proudly on the program for his memorial, was “The Hon. Esmond Vyvyan Harmsworth.”) He knew his background fascinated me, and he indulged me from time to time with amusing anecdotes about it.

As the service drew to a close, the same singer performed an aria from Verdi’s La Traviata, Addio del Passato. Even I understood that “addio” means “goodbye,” and the mournful leave-taking of the dying Violeta was impossible to miss. We who knew and loved Esmond Harmsworth bid him farewell. Many of us lingered until well after dark, sharing stories about Esmond and ourselves, forming new bonds, and celebrating our good fortune at having known the special—and sorely missed—person who had brought us together.