The Unquiet Englishman

June 1, 2020

University of Toronto English professor Greene follows up the Guardian best-booked Graham Greene: The Life in Letters, an edited anthology, with this deeply researched life of the perennial Nobel runner-up. Clearly, he's passionate about his subject, but they are not related.

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October 5, 2020
Greene (Edith Sitwell: Avant Garde Poet, English Genius) presents an exhaustive account of the life of Graham Greene (1904–1991). The writer (no relation to his biographer) grew up in middle-class comfort in idyllic Berkhamsted but struggled with what was eventually diagnosed as bipolar depression starting in his early teens, which worsened as he entered Oxford, where he later claimed to have played Russian roulette six times. The biography creates a vivid impression of how, despite these mental health struggles, Greene kept up an impressive pace as a writer, producing film reviews, screenplays, and such classic novels as The End of the Affair, Brighton Rock, and The Heart of the Matter. His exploits as a world traveler were also prodigious; most fascinating are his experiences in Africa, namely his journey through Liberia on foot in the 1930s to research modern slavery for a humanitarian group, and later, his work as a British intelligence agent in Sierra Leone and South Africa. It’s awe-inspiring that Greene fit so much into a single life, and it’s no small feat that his latest biographer has so skillfully captured that life in a single work that can sit confidently next to Norman Sherry’s three-volume biography of Greene. Agent: Jill Bialosky, Shipman Agency.

October 1, 2020
A new biography takes an in-depth look at one of English literature's most peripatetic figures. Anyone interested in learning about the most violent conflicts of the previous century would get a good start by reading the works of Graham Greene (1904-1991). Born in Berkhamsted, England, he would become one of the literary world's bravest adventurers, with travels to such hotspots as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Vietnam, Cuba, and Haiti. The clashes he witnessed enliven such novels as The Power and the Glory, Our Man in Havana, Monsignor Quixote, and many more. Richard Greene (no relation), a professor of English and editor of Graham Greene: A Life in Letters, uses recently discovered papers and letters (some were found in a "hollow book") to offer "an account of his engagement with the political, literary, intellectual, and religious currents of his time." While many of those papers are revelatory, readers are likely to be frustrated by the author's habit of seguing from one topic to another without fully developing each one. For example, in 1960, "accidental defector" Guy Burgess asked to meet with Graham in Moscow. But the author gives only cursory details of the meeting before moving on to an account of Graham returning to London with a bout of pneumonia and then moving to France as a tax exile. When the author fleshes out events of his subject's life, the narrative is more compelling. The book is at its strongest in passages that document Graham's eventful travels, such as his trip to Indochina for research on The Quiet American, the atrocities he witnessed in Haiti under Papa Doc Duvalier and used as the basis for The Comedians, and the many chapters on his travels to Panama and his friendship with military leader Omar Torrijos during the country's struggles for sovereignty. A comprehensive but scattershot biography of one of the most spirited writers of the 20th century.

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Starred review from October 15, 2020
At 86, Graham Greene anticipated death with fearless curiosity about what lies on the other side of the fence. Richard Greene's (no relation) insightful new biography shows that until the very end, the great twentieth-century novelist courageously crossed barriers?geographic, political, social, amorous, psychological, religious. And, except in that final instance, Greene's barrier-crossings catalyzed a dazzling literary outpouring, captivating millions of readers. But we will not understand that outpouring, Greene asserts, if we join previous biographers who have fixated on the novelist's transgressive sexual life. That fixation obscures the pilgrimage of the agnostic Catholic whose struggle for faith generated his compelling The End of the Affair. Nor does that fixation illuminate Greene's political sojourn through the planet's most impoverished and war-torn regions?Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia?deeply involving him in the travails of oppressed peoples. Though the narrative never loses its focus on Greene as an artist, readers will learn much about the daunting ideological barriers that Greene pushed through to craft his art. Readers will particularly benefit from the illuminating scrutiny of the Cold War orthodoxies Greene violated not only in his iconic The Quiet American, but also in later, often-forgotten works, such as Our Man in Havana and The Honorary Consul. A complete portrait of a many-faceted titan.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)