I'm not a big spender - Duff

MARTY SHARPE/ Dominion Post

NO FLASH LIFESTYLE: Alan Duff has admitted he will not be able to pay back $3.6 million owed to creditors by a court ordered deadline.

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Author Alan Duff has admitted he will not be able to pay back $3.6 million owed to creditors by a court ordered deadline.

Duff has just joined a prestigious golf club but yesterday insisted he is not spending recklessly and that a friend paid for the Hastings Golf Club membership.

The 59-year-old author was on the brink of bankruptcy two years ago. He avoided bankruptcy after all but one of his creditors agreed to a proposal giving him until May this year to pay the debts.

He has been back in Hawke's Bay since November, taking a break from writing books in France in a bid to repay creditors of his failed property developments.

Yesterday Duff, who flies back to France next month, met The Dominion Post to say the two-month golf club membership had cost just $185 and was paid by a friend.

He admitted he will not be able to pay his debts by May, and has indicated this to the court.

He said the only money he had spent on non-essentials since being in New Zealand was $80 on a pair of shoes.

He and wife Joanna Harper are living in a rented house in Havelock North. He drives a Lexus lent by a friend.

His accommodation and flights are paid by friends and he largely lived off his wife's income, he said.

"If I was running around in flash gear and wining and dining, flying business class, fair enough. But I'm not.

"You can hardly call a $185 golf membership spending creditors' money. If the tables were turned and I was a creditor, I would certainly not hold it against them".

Duff has published two novels since moving to France, Dreamboat Dad and Who Sings for Lu?. Sales were modest, but Dreamboat Dad was being released in France in April and he hoped it would do well.

"I can only do my best. Sometimes your best is not good enough."

Who Sings for Lu? has sold just 855 copies, according to Nielsen Bookscan figures, and Duff said it may have suffered from "being rushed out of desperation".

Duff rejects Nielsen sales data that says 2746 copies of both books have sold. "It's way out." A spokeswoman for Nielsen said the figures were 95 per cent accurate.

He said sales had not yet earnt enough to cover his advance on royalties.

He is halfway through another novel. The historical novel, set in France and New Zealand, would be his largest to date and was expected to be released this year.

Duff said he was not ready to be declared bankrupt. "It's just not something I want to lie down and do yet".

If he was declared bankrupt he would still attempt to repay his debts, he said. "If I get money they'll [creditors] see it. I don't want to owe people money. It's excruciating."

His message to creditors is: "I'm sorry I got into business. I just wasn't good enough. Everyone got paid until everything turned to custard and down I went."

John Waymouth, a lawyer for Mutual Finance which is owed $36,000, said yesterday that the company would make another attempt to bankrupt Duff this month. "Now we know he's back in the country we will have him served for the $10,00 to $12,000 he owes in legal fees".

- © Fairfax NZ News