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The Third Woman
This is the enthralling true story of the novelist Graham Greene and the woman who splintered his heart in one of the twentieth century's epic romances. In December 1946, on a snow-covered airfield in East Anglia, the English novelist Graham Greene fell in love with Catherine Walston, the beautiful American wife of an immensely rich gentleman farmer. Their affair lasted nearly fifteen years, until 1961, but remained hidden from the public until after Greene's death three decades later. The Third Woman, however, is more than the story of an affair fraught with blind love, tortured religiosity, thwarted passion, heart-wrenched confessions, and secret vows. It is also an investigation into the facts that Greene wove into his classic 1951 novel End of the Affair, as well as an inquiry into the creative debt that literature owes to adultery, for this was the period, too, of masterpieces like The Heart of the Matter. Out of interviews with Greene's intimates, including his wife and mistress, and with access to the 1200 love letters he wrote to Catherine as well as his correspondence with friends like Evelyn Waugh, Noel Coward, Diana Cooper, Margot Fonteyn, and Alexander Korda, the book retraces the emotional and spiritual progress of an affair played out at Catherine's remote cottage on Ireland's Achill Island, at Greene's villa in Capri, and in their adjoining flats on London's St. James Street. "A remarkable achievement.... Not only has Cash succeeded in piecing together an extraordinary story, but he has painted a vivid portrait of these two complex and fascinating people." - The Spectator; "Compelling reading." - Financial Times.
316 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 4, 2013
Summary
This book purports to explore the real-life adulterous relationship between Graham Greene and Catherine Walston, which inspired Greene’s novel, "The End of the Affair".
The book was published within 12 months or so of the release of the second film based on the novel.
I do not recommend that anybody read Cash’s book before you read the novel or watch the film. If your interest in the people or the events is satiated by either experience, I’d probably recommend that you savour the experience and avoid the temptation to read the book. If they didn’t satiate you, then neither will this work.
A Hack Job for Cash
William Cash sought to take advantage of a narrow window in time, when the film attracted attention to the affair and he had access to some correspondence and interview opportunities that others might not have and perhaps might never have.
This access might have given a more talented writer an opportunity to write a genuinely insightful literary biography of an affair. However, I have to question whether Cash was up to the task.
For a book about two people in whom I had a great interest, Cash insinuates himself, a third person, into a first person account of the affair, to no apparent value.
I derived no insight into the lives of the characters or Greene’s novel from any analysis or expression of opinion by the author.
The protagonists failed to come alive in Cash’s hands, except when they or others are quoted verbatim. I could probably explain the non-chronological, non-thematic approach to the raw material, given time, but that would require me to spend additional time on the analysis of the book that I can’t justify.
Research and Resources
I must concede that Cash appears to have conducted a lot of research, visited and described physical locations, and spoken to current inhabitants of the locations, many of whom had little or no recollection of the events that might have taken place at those locations in the past.
It is not Cash’s fault that we have only Greene’s letters to cite. Greene himself appears to have destroyed nearly all of the letters, journals and diaries of Catherine Walston that ever came into his possession.
This might have been an appropriate strategy to preserve her reputation. Who knows what damage Cash might have done to it, if he had had access to them? Greene’s appeal to me certainly diminished with the citation of private correspondence that was never meant to be seen by more than two sets of eyes. If he had suspected it would be subjected to such inane scrutiny, he might have made greater use of the telephone than the postal service.
Literary Style
I wouldn’t say Cash is a terribly bad writer, but I wouldn’t say he is a terribly good writer. I am content with the adverb, but can’t yet find an appropriate adjective to describe his literary prowess.
The book strikes me as a contract job that appealed to Cash more than a ghost-written autobiography of a forgotten war hero, a middle order batsman, a football referee or a disgraced athlete.
If the author was paid a lot of cash, it doesn’t appear that he spent much of it on an editor.
His scene-setting consists of the following level of description:
"The outside walls were the colour and texture of lumpy grey porridge."
In the next paragraph, we learn that Greene’s old cottage is now a "squalid wreck" and that "seagulls squalled and circled overhead" (do birds squawk or squall?). Over the page, the squalid wreck has become an "abandoned squat". Squat the fuck was he thinking?
An Anecdote
There is one anecdote (the source of which is not cited) at which I laughed out loud, so I hope you don’t mind if I close this rant by recounting it.
It relates to a dinner party at Carol Reed’s home in King’s Road, Chelsea, which I recall photographing on my recent sojourn to Paris and London.
Apart from the host, the dinner was attended by Graham Greene, Catherine Walston, Evelyn Waugh, the film-maker Alexander Korda and his then current girlfriend.
The next day, Greene confronted Waugh as to why he had been so rude to Korda during the evening.
Waugh replied that Korda had no right to bring his mistress to Reed’s home.
"But I brought my mistress," Greene replied, referring to Catherine.
"That is quite different," said Waugh. "She is married."
"The End of the Affair"
My review of Greene's novel is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
This book purports to explore the real-life adulterous relationship between Graham Greene and Catherine Walston, which inspired Greene’s novel, "The End of the Affair".
The book was published within 12 months or so of the release of the second film based on the novel.
I do not recommend that anybody read Cash’s book before you read the novel or watch the film. If your interest in the people or the events is satiated by either experience, I’d probably recommend that you savour the experience and avoid the temptation to read the book. If they didn’t satiate you, then neither will this work.
A Hack Job for Cash
William Cash sought to take advantage of a narrow window in time, when the film attracted attention to the affair and he had access to some correspondence and interview opportunities that others might not have and perhaps might never have.
This access might have given a more talented writer an opportunity to write a genuinely insightful literary biography of an affair. However, I have to question whether Cash was up to the task.
For a book about two people in whom I had a great interest, Cash insinuates himself, a third person, into a first person account of the affair, to no apparent value.
I derived no insight into the lives of the characters or Greene’s novel from any analysis or expression of opinion by the author.
The protagonists failed to come alive in Cash’s hands, except when they or others are quoted verbatim. I could probably explain the non-chronological, non-thematic approach to the raw material, given time, but that would require me to spend additional time on the analysis of the book that I can’t justify.
Research and Resources
I must concede that Cash appears to have conducted a lot of research, visited and described physical locations, and spoken to current inhabitants of the locations, many of whom had little or no recollection of the events that might have taken place at those locations in the past.
It is not Cash’s fault that we have only Greene’s letters to cite. Greene himself appears to have destroyed nearly all of the letters, journals and diaries of Catherine Walston that ever came into his possession.
This might have been an appropriate strategy to preserve her reputation. Who knows what damage Cash might have done to it, if he had had access to them? Greene’s appeal to me certainly diminished with the citation of private correspondence that was never meant to be seen by more than two sets of eyes. If he had suspected it would be subjected to such inane scrutiny, he might have made greater use of the telephone than the postal service.
Literary Style
I wouldn’t say Cash is a terribly bad writer, but I wouldn’t say he is a terribly good writer. I am content with the adverb, but can’t yet find an appropriate adjective to describe his literary prowess.
The book strikes me as a contract job that appealed to Cash more than a ghost-written autobiography of a forgotten war hero, a middle order batsman, a football referee or a disgraced athlete.
If the author was paid a lot of cash, it doesn’t appear that he spent much of it on an editor.
His scene-setting consists of the following level of description:
"The outside walls were the colour and texture of lumpy grey porridge."
In the next paragraph, we learn that Greene’s old cottage is now a "squalid wreck" and that "seagulls squalled and circled overhead" (do birds squawk or squall?). Over the page, the squalid wreck has become an "abandoned squat". Squat the fuck was he thinking?
An Anecdote
There is one anecdote (the source of which is not cited) at which I laughed out loud, so I hope you don’t mind if I close this rant by recounting it.
It relates to a dinner party at Carol Reed’s home in King’s Road, Chelsea, which I recall photographing on my recent sojourn to Paris and London.
Apart from the host, the dinner was attended by Graham Greene, Catherine Walston, Evelyn Waugh, the film-maker Alexander Korda and his then current girlfriend.
The next day, Greene confronted Waugh as to why he had been so rude to Korda during the evening.
Waugh replied that Korda had no right to bring his mistress to Reed’s home.
"But I brought my mistress," Greene replied, referring to Catherine.
"That is quite different," said Waugh. "She is married."
"The End of the Affair"
My review of Greene's novel is here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
September 21, 2016
Graham Greene, for me, will be forever intriguing. A true writer, his mind and life are as intriguing as his own literature. This work attempts to shed light on a tiny cameo of that life - on Catherine -, the third woman of the title( more like 63rd) as well as the dark tangle of Green's Catholicism.
The two are intertwined. Catherine engineers a lesson with Greene by asking him to be her Godfather in converting to Catholicism - then becomes his lover. It is a fraught relationship, not less so because she is married and an insatiable collector, it seems, of other lovers many of them priests.
It is part of Greene's twisted ethos that he apparently found a consistency in bedding married women and staunch Catholicism.
It is interesting, in fact, it's what his books are about - how to be a bad catholic yet still be a catholic. The trick apparently lies in confession. As an atheist , that is a closed book for me. I simply don't understand, but i still like reading Greene.
I found this an odd little work, well researched. It is the tortured relationship that gave rise to Greene's "The End of the Affair", (which made a good film staring Jeremy Irons.)
But reading i felt a little grubby. It is not written with lascivious purpose and there are no grubby details in it. But it is a look through the keyhole at a aprt of Greene's life that he would have preferred remained hidden. You don't have to read it to understand Greene or or appreciate any of his books.
So, I don't know, a fine movie was made out of it and that's what counts. But don't read this book for edification. Greens was a writer first and foremost rather than a flawed individual and that is how I'd like to remember him.
The two are intertwined. Catherine engineers a lesson with Greene by asking him to be her Godfather in converting to Catholicism - then becomes his lover. It is a fraught relationship, not less so because she is married and an insatiable collector, it seems, of other lovers many of them priests.
It is part of Greene's twisted ethos that he apparently found a consistency in bedding married women and staunch Catholicism.
It is interesting, in fact, it's what his books are about - how to be a bad catholic yet still be a catholic. The trick apparently lies in confession. As an atheist , that is a closed book for me. I simply don't understand, but i still like reading Greene.
I found this an odd little work, well researched. It is the tortured relationship that gave rise to Greene's "The End of the Affair", (which made a good film staring Jeremy Irons.)
But reading i felt a little grubby. It is not written with lascivious purpose and there are no grubby details in it. But it is a look through the keyhole at a aprt of Greene's life that he would have preferred remained hidden. You don't have to read it to understand Greene or or appreciate any of his books.
So, I don't know, a fine movie was made out of it and that's what counts. But don't read this book for edification. Greens was a writer first and foremost rather than a flawed individual and that is how I'd like to remember him.
December 20, 2015
A great deal of research and generally well written. However, this book desperately needed better editing. Items are repeated and the timelines are jumbled. The content does not seem to be organized by theme, location, point of view or time, all of which makes for a somewhat confusing read. It is a shame because many sections are well written and the author obviously went to great deal of effort to obtain the information presented. I would only recommend this to someone who has already read a lot of Greene's work, as well as the entire Sherry three volume biography and the negative Shelden biography. This fills in and fleshes out those works.
April 26, 2012
Quite interesting especially after having just finished reading "The End of the Affair." Want to read an actual biography of him now as well as more of his books.
November 5, 2023
Too many thoughts to put down. But here's a few.
I picked this up at a bookstore because The End of the Affair radically affected my view of life and relationships, so of course I wanted to read about how and from what it was created. I was a little worried the context might taint my relationship with the book, and it did complexify it. That the author could never be sleeping with only one woman at a time, even when that one was the great love of his life (and that the same goes for that great love - and like everyone else in their lives?? Such passionate feelings tossed around so lightly and thus, it appears, meaninglessly). But I don't think I'll give that the power to dramatically affect the book's meaning to me.
Most of Catherine's letters and diaries being destroyed does create a one-sided view of the relationship, not helped by so many people expressing their negative views of her. We get all of Greene's perspective, and then she is just a blank wall. I feel some dislike for her, and wondering what it was that could have inspired such feelings - but also if I'm being brutally honest with myself I wonder if some of that comes from a personal awareness of my lack of everything that makes her so magnetic and dynamic and irresistible as a human and a woman. I want to know her side of the story (to read her diary like Bendrix could read Sarah's), to get to the bottom of her true self.
The book itself felt very unorganized and un-cohesive. I wonder if the author is to blame for some of the negative feelings I come out of it with.
I picked this up at a bookstore because The End of the Affair radically affected my view of life and relationships, so of course I wanted to read about how and from what it was created. I was a little worried the context might taint my relationship with the book, and it did complexify it. That the author could never be sleeping with only one woman at a time, even when that one was the great love of his life (and that the same goes for that great love - and like everyone else in their lives?? Such passionate feelings tossed around so lightly and thus, it appears, meaninglessly). But I don't think I'll give that the power to dramatically affect the book's meaning to me.
Most of Catherine's letters and diaries being destroyed does create a one-sided view of the relationship, not helped by so many people expressing their negative views of her. We get all of Greene's perspective, and then she is just a blank wall. I feel some dislike for her, and wondering what it was that could have inspired such feelings - but also if I'm being brutally honest with myself I wonder if some of that comes from a personal awareness of my lack of everything that makes her so magnetic and dynamic and irresistible as a human and a woman. I want to know her side of the story (to read her diary like Bendrix could read Sarah's), to get to the bottom of her true self.
The book itself felt very unorganized and un-cohesive. I wonder if the author is to blame for some of the negative feelings I come out of it with.
December 13, 2022
After re-reading The End of the Affair recently, I wanted to watch the film adaptation so checked library catalogue for the DVD and this book was returned in the results. Intrigued I checked this out. I have read most of what GG has written, but know scant little about the man. This was really interesting as a snapshot of that time (post war Britain) and a glamourous circle of writers, artists and politicians convening at the country estate of the Walstons. The affair that developed, the travelling, the wealth, the numerous dinners at Rules....
August 1, 2018
Ugh, I only finished it because a favorite (British) professor recommended it to me. Clunky, uneven, and good grief, did he have an editor? Has the author EVER read a scholarly biography with non-repetitive physical descriptions of its subjects and a cohesive timeline? Anyway, I'm not going to attempt to read another bio of Greene until I've read more of his major works and then some of his journalism.
June 27, 2025
A thorough investigation into Graham Greene’s love for Catherine Walston,essential for lovers of Graham Greene’s fiction and his novel “ The End of the Affair”.A deep study full of insights but only really for enthusiasts.
May 30, 2011
A meticulously researched exploration of Graham Greene's actually not-so-secret affair with Catherine Walston, who became Greene's muse for one of his best novels. Greene comes off as a particularly unpleasant person whose fatalistic Catholicism is non-normative, to say the least, and Walston could charitably be described as a woman of easy virtue. Their inconvenient love caused problems for them both for decades. Author William Cash is sympathetic without either giving in to Greene's cult of personality or ignoring the complexity of his guilt. The book sometimes gets lost in the details of specific incidents, to the detriment of its overall continuity and flow, but the author is a good-humored guide and companion, consistently finding and connecting telling details in private letters and remembered conversations. A good book about deeply selfish people.
August 24, 2009
Read this book because I absolutely love the book (and the film adaption) "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene. Befor I`ve read this book I knew almost nothing about Graham Greene but this book gave me a kind of an idea what he must have been like.
I found this book very well-written and good researched. I had the feeling that he didn`t had the intention to judge the affair or to try to show his or a gossip version of it but to find out the truth. I also liked that he wasn`t judging it at all and kept telling from a rather distant perspective. Thanks to this book I am thrilled to read more about and by Graham Greene.
I found this book very well-written and good researched. I had the feeling that he didn`t had the intention to judge the affair or to try to show his or a gossip version of it but to find out the truth. I also liked that he wasn`t judging it at all and kept telling from a rather distant perspective. Thanks to this book I am thrilled to read more about and by Graham Greene.
June 22, 2008
The only book I've read about Graham Greene, so it was interesting if incomplete. Left me wishing for more, both in terms of Greene and Catherine Walston, his mistress and inspiration for End of the Affair.
June 17, 2011
Poorly organized and hard to follow chronologically but well researched and interesting.
December 4, 2012
A must read for fans of Graham Greene.
Read
February 15, 2019Very thorough. The main focus is Greene's affair with Catherine Walston, but Cash also delves into the other women in Greene's life.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews