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The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene
A Finalist for the 2022 Edgar AwardA Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of the YearA vivid, deeply researched account of the tumultuous life of one of the twentieth century’s greatest novelists, the author of The End of the Affair.
One of the most celebrated British writers of his generation, Graham Greene’s own story was as strange and compelling as those he told of Pinkie the Mobster, Harry Lime, or the Whisky Priest. A journalist and MI6 officer, Greene sought out the inner narratives of war and politics across the world; he witnessed the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the Mau Mau Rebellion, the rise of Fidel Castro, and the guerrilla wars of Central America. His classic novels, including The Heart of the Matter and The Quiet American, are only pieces of a career that reads like a primer on the twentieth century itself.
The Unquiet Englishman braids the narratives of Greene’s extraordinary life. It portrays a man who was traumatized as an adolescent and later suffered a mental illness that brought him to the point of suicide on several occasions; it tells the story of a restless traveler and unfailing advocate for human rights exploring troubled places around the world, a man who struggled to believe in God and yet found himself described as a great Catholic writer; it reveals a private life in which love almost always ended in ruin, alongside a larger story of politicians, battlefields, and spies. Above all, The Unquiet Englishman shows us a brilliant novelist mastering his craft.
A work of wit, insight, and compassion, this new biography of Graham Greene, the first undertaken in a generation, responds to the many thousands of pages of letters that have recently come to light and to new memoirs by those who knew him best. It deals sensitively with questions of private life, sex, and mental illness, and sheds new light on one of the foremost modern writers.
One of the most celebrated British writers of his generation, Graham Greene’s own story was as strange and compelling as those he told of Pinkie the Mobster, Harry Lime, or the Whisky Priest. A journalist and MI6 officer, Greene sought out the inner narratives of war and politics across the world; he witnessed the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the Mau Mau Rebellion, the rise of Fidel Castro, and the guerrilla wars of Central America. His classic novels, including The Heart of the Matter and The Quiet American, are only pieces of a career that reads like a primer on the twentieth century itself.
The Unquiet Englishman braids the narratives of Greene’s extraordinary life. It portrays a man who was traumatized as an adolescent and later suffered a mental illness that brought him to the point of suicide on several occasions; it tells the story of a restless traveler and unfailing advocate for human rights exploring troubled places around the world, a man who struggled to believe in God and yet found himself described as a great Catholic writer; it reveals a private life in which love almost always ended in ruin, alongside a larger story of politicians, battlefields, and spies. Above all, The Unquiet Englishman shows us a brilliant novelist mastering his craft.
A work of wit, insight, and compassion, this new biography of Graham Greene, the first undertaken in a generation, responds to the many thousands of pages of letters that have recently come to light and to new memoirs by those who knew him best. It deals sensitively with questions of private life, sex, and mental illness, and sheds new light on one of the foremost modern writers.
607 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 12, 2021
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400 people want to read
About the author
Richard Greene
113 books14 followersRichard Thomas Greene is a Canadian poet and biographer whose book Boxing the Compass won the Governor General's Award for English language poetry at the 2010 Governor General's Awards. Greene received his BA in English at Memorial University in 1983, and took his doctorate as a Rothermere Fellow at Oxford University in 1991. He returned to Memorial University to teach English before joining the University Of Toronto at Mississauga in 1995, as a member of the English and Drama department. Married to pianist Marianne Marusic and father to four children, he resides in Cobourg, Ontario.
Greene first distinguished himself as a teacher and a critic with his book Mary Leapor: A Study in Eighteenth-Century Women's Poetry, published in 1993. In addition to 18th-century poetry, it was with scholarly works on Dame Edith Sitwell and Graham Greene that Greene broke through to greater renown and a wide general readership. He enjoyed international success in 2007 with Graham Greene: A Life in Letters - a biography constructed out of the novelist's own words. His recent biography, Edith Sitwell: Avant-garde Poet, English Genius is an attempt to revive the reputation of a neglected writer.
Greene is primarily known in Canada as a poet. His first collection, Republic of Solitude: Poems 1984-1994 drew little attention from reviewers when published in Newfoundland in 1994. However, it contains poems such as "Utopia" that have been often anthologized. His second collection, Crossing the Straits, was published by the St. Thomas Poetry Series of Toronto in 2004. Richard Greene's third collection of poems, Boxing the Compass, describes the journeys Greene made by Greyhound and Amtrak while visiting archives of Graham Greene's letters. It eventually won him the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.
Richard Greene currently teaches Creative Writing and British literature at the University of Toronto.
Greene first distinguished himself as a teacher and a critic with his book Mary Leapor: A Study in Eighteenth-Century Women's Poetry, published in 1993. In addition to 18th-century poetry, it was with scholarly works on Dame Edith Sitwell and Graham Greene that Greene broke through to greater renown and a wide general readership. He enjoyed international success in 2007 with Graham Greene: A Life in Letters - a biography constructed out of the novelist's own words. His recent biography, Edith Sitwell: Avant-garde Poet, English Genius is an attempt to revive the reputation of a neglected writer.
Greene is primarily known in Canada as a poet. His first collection, Republic of Solitude: Poems 1984-1994 drew little attention from reviewers when published in Newfoundland in 1994. However, it contains poems such as "Utopia" that have been often anthologized. His second collection, Crossing the Straits, was published by the St. Thomas Poetry Series of Toronto in 2004. Richard Greene's third collection of poems, Boxing the Compass, describes the journeys Greene made by Greyhound and Amtrak while visiting archives of Graham Greene's letters. It eventually won him the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.
Richard Greene currently teaches Creative Writing and British literature at the University of Toronto.
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March 30, 2023The first 25% of this book was crisp and informative. Sadly, after that it got mired in pointless encyclopedia detail, with all sorts of forgettable anecdotes and minor players in Greene's life. Just one example, the author has several chapters about Greene's trips to Vietnam that quickly bog down. I was thinking much better to reread Greene's novel "The Quiet American." I am not surprised the book has not sold at all on Amazon and there has been little attention to it on Goodreads. In the beginning, the author expressed excitement about a lot of new primary source material that had become available in recent years. That's fine. He simply was not selective or apt in what he chose to include it in his book. It feels like much of it was dumped indiscriminately into his book.
======
Here's an excellent New Yorker article on Greene as an alternative.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
==========
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” GG
In David Cornwell's view, the former MI6 officer who writes as John le Carré, intelligence work appeals to writers as it is close to their own process, and they find it has a lasting hold on them:
". . . watchfulness, the secrecy of your perceptions – you keep them to yourself – and the sense of alienation, of being an observer within society rather than a member of it. And I think that was very much in Graham Greene. There are people, I count myself among them, who are writers first and everything else second, who go through these strange corridors of the secret world and find an affinity with them and it never leaves them. There’s a kind of inside-out thinking that never leaves you. It has to do with the manipulation of people, and with self-examination – so if I am constantly wondering what will procure you as my friend, my informant: what do you eat? What are your appetites? How can I get hold of you? – then by the same token I am asking the same questions of myself: what will I actually fall for? I think it invests you, while you are in this mode, with a superior power which is thoroughly unhealthy. And I don’t think Graham Green ever shook it off. Even when he was being oppositional, he imagined he was changing world history."
======================
Graham Greene's writing habit.....
https://www.williamlanday.com/2009/07...
More on his writing....
http://greeneland.tripod.com/writing.htm
======
Here's an excellent New Yorker article on Greene as an alternative.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
==========
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” GG
In David Cornwell's view, the former MI6 officer who writes as John le Carré, intelligence work appeals to writers as it is close to their own process, and they find it has a lasting hold on them:
". . . watchfulness, the secrecy of your perceptions – you keep them to yourself – and the sense of alienation, of being an observer within society rather than a member of it. And I think that was very much in Graham Greene. There are people, I count myself among them, who are writers first and everything else second, who go through these strange corridors of the secret world and find an affinity with them and it never leaves them. There’s a kind of inside-out thinking that never leaves you. It has to do with the manipulation of people, and with self-examination – so if I am constantly wondering what will procure you as my friend, my informant: what do you eat? What are your appetites? How can I get hold of you? – then by the same token I am asking the same questions of myself: what will I actually fall for? I think it invests you, while you are in this mode, with a superior power which is thoroughly unhealthy. And I don’t think Graham Green ever shook it off. Even when he was being oppositional, he imagined he was changing world history."
======================
Graham Greene's writing habit.....
https://www.williamlanday.com/2009/07...
More on his writing....
http://greeneland.tripod.com/writing.htm
June 18, 2024
How many authors can be said to have created a fictional topography evoked by the mention of their surname, as is the case with Greeneland?
The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene, by Canadian Richard Greene, unrelated to the author, stands as an excellent contribution to better understanding the terrain within the British author's classic novels & other literary work.
It seems that Graham Greene's "characteristically ruinous landscapes" were dubbed Greeneland in 1940 by his neighbor, Arthur Calder-Marshall. What propelled Greene to take such pleasure in creating characters who were sent to ruinous landscapes so far afield from Greene's native country?
To borrow a phrase, he seemed a perpetual "infracaninophile", a word coined by the American, Christopher Morley, to describe someone who is inclined to support the underdog, whenever & wherever they may be located.
The book begins with some excellent coverage of Graham Greene's ancestry, including a family connection to Robert Louis Stevenson, his early love of books, including some that had an imperial slant that he later repudiated & his difficult days at class-ridden Berkhamsted School where Graham's father was headmaster, complicating young Graham's life at the boarding school.
His father "aimed to personify a noble old liberalism", hoping to train lower class boys who were scholarship students at Berkhamsted, with Graham befriending another boy who had been taunted by his fellow students.
Prone to illness, boredom & depression as a youth, Greene took part in psychoanalysis & was much later diagnosed as bipolar. The author seemed an indifferent student at Balliol College, Oxford, continuing to read extensively when not partying & participating in pranks.
After university, he fell in love with Vivien Browning, a Roman-Catholic, converting to that faith while having "no idea where his faith would take him", while living much of his life at a distance from his wife & children. He enlisted Fr. George Trollope to tutor him & found his cleric-confessor to have "an inexplicable goodness", the first of many satisfying relationships with Catholic priests.
After his conversion, Greene lived the rest of his life "at the margins of faith", sensing faith as different than belief & spending much of his life attempting to fully understand this perceived difference.
In spite of a life that some would consider dissolute, Graham Greene was also said to lead a lifelong quest for a kind of innocence, using his connection to Catholicism partly as a filter and also in part, due to a sense of rebellion against the predominant religious tradition within Great Britain. Occasionally called a "Catholic Agnostic", he suggested that "the truth is that I don't believe my unbelief".
Richard Greene catalogues Graham Greene's autobiographies as conveying cynicism & ennui but also with an underlying core of nostalgia & even sentimentality. The biographer comments that Greene's fiction always seemed to have a "cinematic aspect", with the novelist commenting that:
Whether in Mexico, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Paraguay, Malaya or Vietnam, Greene always valued his friendships, even including the one with counter-spy Kim Philby who fled to the USSR, always accentuating personal friendship over loyalty to country.
Within Greene's novels, the quality of "moral ambiguity" is exceedingly pronounced and the author saw saint-like attributes in many who lived on the margins of respectability. Thus, the so-called "whiskey-priest" in The Power & the Glory is cast as an idealized figure & a non-believer who builds churches & cathedrals in Africa in A Burnt-Out Case is not seen as contradictory.
From his first trip to Liberia in West Africa with his cousin Barbara, Greene continued a fascination with Africa. Later, he went to the Congo to study aspects of leprosy & with a novel in mind, whereas he'd gone to Kenya during Mau Mau as a journalist and to Sierra Leone during WWII under the auspices of the British Foreign Service, seeing his role in each case as very different but always with an eye toward writing about his explorations. When asked about his attraction to seediness, he said:
There is also a rather non-judgmental approach to uncovering Greene's life that I appreciated, though Greene's numerous affairs, his affection for prostitutes & copious amounts of alcohol are clearly in view throughout. However, balanced against that is the indication that Greene gave much of his wealth away to friends, including a former lover & to causes he supported and was steadfastly loyal to those he had befriended.
I confess to having had an incurable penchant for the works of Graham Greene since I first encountered his novels & briefer fiction, having read some of his work multiple times. And while not many at G/R have read this namesake biography & some that have assigned it faint praise, I found The Unquiet Englishman an admirable attempt at explicating the life of an author who largely preferred his private persona to remain hidden within his public profile.
*Within my review are images of Graham Greene, including one with a quote from the author
The Unquiet Englishman: A Life of Graham Greene, by Canadian Richard Greene, unrelated to the author, stands as an excellent contribution to better understanding the terrain within the British author's classic novels & other literary work.
It seems that Graham Greene's "characteristically ruinous landscapes" were dubbed Greeneland in 1940 by his neighbor, Arthur Calder-Marshall. What propelled Greene to take such pleasure in creating characters who were sent to ruinous landscapes so far afield from Greene's native country?
To borrow a phrase, he seemed a perpetual "infracaninophile", a word coined by the American, Christopher Morley, to describe someone who is inclined to support the underdog, whenever & wherever they may be located.
The book begins with some excellent coverage of Graham Greene's ancestry, including a family connection to Robert Louis Stevenson, his early love of books, including some that had an imperial slant that he later repudiated & his difficult days at class-ridden Berkhamsted School where Graham's father was headmaster, complicating young Graham's life at the boarding school.
His father "aimed to personify a noble old liberalism", hoping to train lower class boys who were scholarship students at Berkhamsted, with Graham befriending another boy who had been taunted by his fellow students.
Prone to illness, boredom & depression as a youth, Greene took part in psychoanalysis & was much later diagnosed as bipolar. The author seemed an indifferent student at Balliol College, Oxford, continuing to read extensively when not partying & participating in pranks.
After university, he fell in love with Vivien Browning, a Roman-Catholic, converting to that faith while having "no idea where his faith would take him", while living much of his life at a distance from his wife & children. He enlisted Fr. George Trollope to tutor him & found his cleric-confessor to have "an inexplicable goodness", the first of many satisfying relationships with Catholic priests.
After his conversion, Greene lived the rest of his life "at the margins of faith", sensing faith as different than belief & spending much of his life attempting to fully understand this perceived difference.
In spite of a life that some would consider dissolute, Graham Greene was also said to lead a lifelong quest for a kind of innocence, using his connection to Catholicism partly as a filter and also in part, due to a sense of rebellion against the predominant religious tradition within Great Britain. Occasionally called a "Catholic Agnostic", he suggested that "the truth is that I don't believe my unbelief".
Richard Greene catalogues Graham Greene's autobiographies as conveying cynicism & ennui but also with an underlying core of nostalgia & even sentimentality. The biographer comments that Greene's fiction always seemed to have a "cinematic aspect", with the novelist commenting that:
when I describe a scene, I capture it with the moving eye of a cine-camera, rather than with a photographer's eye which leaves the scene frozen, preferring to follow the characters & their movements so that the landscape remains in motion.Malcolm Muggeridge suggested that Greene "always seemed to be living from hand to mouth, spiritually as well as physically, one of nature's displaced persons." And Greene appeared to enjoy living on the edge, with "no place in Greeneland truly safe", as the biography puts it.
Whether in Mexico, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Paraguay, Malaya or Vietnam, Greene always valued his friendships, even including the one with counter-spy Kim Philby who fled to the USSR, always accentuating personal friendship over loyalty to country.
Within Greene's novels, the quality of "moral ambiguity" is exceedingly pronounced and the author saw saint-like attributes in many who lived on the margins of respectability. Thus, the so-called "whiskey-priest" in The Power & the Glory is cast as an idealized figure & a non-believer who builds churches & cathedrals in Africa in A Burnt-Out Case is not seen as contradictory.
From his first trip to Liberia in West Africa with his cousin Barbara, Greene continued a fascination with Africa. Later, he went to the Congo to study aspects of leprosy & with a novel in mind, whereas he'd gone to Kenya during Mau Mau as a journalist and to Sierra Leone during WWII under the auspices of the British Foreign Service, seeing his role in each case as very different but always with an eye toward writing about his explorations. When asked about his attraction to seediness, he said:
I think it's the same draw that a child has towards making a mud pie. Perhaps it's a remaining infantility in one's character. The seedy is nearer the beginning, isn't it--or nearer the end, I suppose. As to why my books are set so far from England, I would guess that it's a restlessness, as I've always needed to move around and perhaps to see English characters in a setting which is not protective to them.Richard Greene's biography of Graham Greene is at times rather plodding, with too much detail about warring sides in Latin America in countries where Graham had gone in support of various causes & also a litany of unfamiliar names without much documentation, rather than retaining a focus on the author & his books.
There is also a rather non-judgmental approach to uncovering Greene's life that I appreciated, though Greene's numerous affairs, his affection for prostitutes & copious amounts of alcohol are clearly in view throughout. However, balanced against that is the indication that Greene gave much of his wealth away to friends, including a former lover & to causes he supported and was steadfastly loyal to those he had befriended.
I confess to having had an incurable penchant for the works of Graham Greene since I first encountered his novels & briefer fiction, having read some of his work multiple times. And while not many at G/R have read this namesake biography & some that have assigned it faint praise, I found The Unquiet Englishman an admirable attempt at explicating the life of an author who largely preferred his private persona to remain hidden within his public profile.
*Within my review are images of Graham Greene, including one with a quote from the author
February 6, 2021
I became fascinated with Graham Greene after seeing the 2002 film of the Quiet American, starring Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser, which I regard as one of the best movies I've ever seen. I then read the novel and was similarly impressed. I knew that Greene has written the screenplay for The Third Man, one of the best movies ever. So I was so interested in reading this new biography of the man. It was more than just a literary biography, it turned out to be a geo-political account of so many of the world's most troubling places in the years following World War II. The Quiet American, of course, correctly forecast what would happen with America's growing involvement in Vietnam, but Graham also had numerous travels and reported on Haiti, Cuba, Panama, and African countries undergoing violent change. His personal life was complicated by excessive drinking, manic depression, deeply felt love affairs and struggles as a Catholic convert. He was also a very generous man, providing so much help for many. I'm so interested in reading more novels and immersing myself in what is known as "Greeneland."
January 31, 2021
I've long been meaning to read more of Graham Greene's works. It just so happened, however, that the next book to come my way bearing his name on its cover was this recently published biography rather than any of his writings - and I figured, well, whyever not. I always find it fascinating to see where an author derives their ideas from, and Greene's long and eventful life certainly provided him with a wealth of material. An interesting read as well as a good reminder to get on with checking some of his books out of the library.
February 5, 2022
full of information but not an exciting biography.
June 22, 2022
I've read several of Graham Greene's novels but knew almost nothing of his life, so I found The Unquiet Englishman very informative and interesting. The author clearly admires Greene, but doesn't engage in hero worship, acknowledging that while Greene was often generous and compassionate, he was also a flawed individual. While it should be no surprise that Greene dies at the end, I found it a bit disconcerting that the book ends abruptly at that point - I would have appreciated a follow-up chapter exploring Greene's enduring legacy both as a writer and as an outspoken individual. Otherwise this is quite a good book and has inspired me to seek out more of Greene's works.
October 27, 2021
I can't say it was an easy read. Greene was certainly a mess of a human being. Not without insight or wisdom, but steadfastly committed to doing the same dumb things over and over again, nonetheless. Still, the book itself is well-researched and well-done, and if it got dull or depressing to read "Greene flies to troubled country, finds new women to cheat with, meets leaders, writes book" on repeat, well, that's not the author's fault.
September 24, 2021
I don't read many biographies so my opinion is probably idiosyncratic. The book (on its release in England originally titled: RUSSIAN ROULETTE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GRAHAM GREENE) is written entertainingly though there are quite a few clunky sentences and some grammar mistakes. Living through most of the 20th century (1904-1991), Graham Greene led an unusually varied and well-travelled life. The author, Richard Greene (RG hereafter), divides his text into short chapters that deal, in Greene's youth with various aspects of his upbringing and mental health, and in his adulthood with his travels and books. I like this way of organizing the work--makes it very readable and easy to digest, though it has the disadvantage of not allowing much room for discussion of major themes. It also leads to some repetition. My main criticism of the book is that RG ends abruptly with Greene's death. The biography opens with a chapter, "The Dog in the Pram," that contains a discussion of Greene's parents and family and background to his birth and early childhood. So far so good. Then why, at the end of the book doesn't RG give us a couple of chapters of assessment? RG doesn't pretend to be a literary scholar, but he could certainly quote some scholars on Greene's present reputation. What effect, in the 30 years since his death, has Greene had on other writers? RG could also assess Greene's impact on international politics. My goodness, Greene hobnobbed with all kinds of famous leaders and journalists. Is there anything he said or did that had a lasting impact? And what about all the people who survived Greene--his children, his estranged wife, his friends? The biography is dedicated to Bernard Diederich, who was a close friend of Greene's (and apparently also of the author's). What did Diedrich do in the 30 years between Greene's death and his own? Basically what is wanted is some summing up. One last observation and criticism. I spent $40 on this book, and the binding cracked before I was two thirds of the way through--poor book construction for sure...
August 16, 2022
Now this is interesting...I followed up Isherwood's biography with one of his literary contemporaries. But Graham Greene's literary and social life is vastly different to Christopher Isherwood...and so is his biography. It's just as exhaustive and detailed, but it's a bit tighter, more concise, more focused...and less obsessed with every last bit of minutiae. I could complain about the slightly abrupt conclusion without any post-Greene follow up...but I'll be generous, as it doesn't bring down the rest of this excellent book.
May 11, 2021
Richard Greene's excellent biography of Graham Greene does what the best biographies of authors do best. They make you want to go out and re-read their books after finishing the biography. Graham Greene wrote some of the greatest books of the 20th century, and this bio tells his story, good times and bad, warts and all, his extraordinary journeys around some of the most troubled areas of the world. It tells how those amazing journeys and people he met shaped his incredible books. Graham Greene had many personal and emotional problems, and this fed into his creativity as well. His is a pretty amazing story. I have uploaded several of his books to my Kindle to re-read them. I'm looking forward to revisiting these stories I read many years ago.
November 21, 2021
Well-intentioned but hardly probing biography of the complicated reporter-novelist-screenwriter-publisher. Greene is a fascinating, multi-faceted subject: bipolar, alcoholic, religious, and nomadic, with a lifelong soft spot for underdogs and political hotbeds (the book doubles as a history of twentieth-century East-West conflicts). Unlike his persecuted heroes, however, here, he's forgiven all sins. It's a thick love letter, not a character study.
February 19, 2021
Very, very good book! A nice complement to the three volume Norman Sherry work. Informative and a pleasure to read.
May 10, 2021
Good biography of a fascinating figure in English lit-one of the century's best crime novelists.
January 9, 2022
Graham Greene was an interesting guy whose life spanned most of the 20th century. He was an intrepid traveler, and spent many years visiting third world countries in the midst of conflict - Vietnam, the Congo, Cuba, Haiti, Panama, among others. Out of "deep dives" into these countries came many of his best novels. During it all, he dealt with crippling depression that in his early life tipped into suicidal ideation. He was a convert to Roman Catholicism who was plagued by doubts, and who never divorced his wife but had many multi-year affairs. Many of the characters in his novels grapple with the same crises of faith. The author of this biography (no relation) tells a compelling story, but sometimes gets bogged down in too many details of, for example, negotiations with film producers and so forth. Now I would really like to go back and re-read many of Greene's books, as I am sure I was too young the first time around.
May 28, 2021
The author takes us on a journey that covers the life of Graham Greene quite well. I believe he has motivated me to take up reading the works of the larger-than-life figure of Graham Greene. I am trying to recall whether I have ever read any works beyond, "The Power and The Glory," which I read quite a number of years ago. I had been only vaguely aware that he was so troubled a soul as seems the case, reporting to have tried "Russian roulette" at times - the truthfulness of the claim being questionable. He seems to have struggled at times with whether his work was serious literature or, as he referred to his thrillers, "entertainments." This work was well worth the time spent listening.
April 6, 2023
With the sheer volume of travel, work, and lifestyle drama in Greene’s life, it seems a biography that had a minimum would be brilliant, but this book falls far short.
It was so tedious/overly-detailed in dry portions and then would mention a CIA connection or an important work in Greene’s canon with a passing remark.
I felt the research was great, but the voice was awkward, and the editing almost non existent.
Graham Greene’s actions/background are described in detail to the point of repetition, but I felt I really knew little more of value about him or his work even after 600 pages.
I finished it only to say I didn’t quit- and I think the fact it held such promise made the lack seem the greater.
I appreciate the voluminous research, but it was a disappointing construction.
It was so tedious/overly-detailed in dry portions and then would mention a CIA connection or an important work in Greene’s canon with a passing remark.
I felt the research was great, but the voice was awkward, and the editing almost non existent.
Graham Greene’s actions/background are described in detail to the point of repetition, but I felt I really knew little more of value about him or his work even after 600 pages.
I finished it only to say I didn’t quit- and I think the fact it held such promise made the lack seem the greater.
I appreciate the voluminous research, but it was a disappointing construction.
December 3, 2023
R. Greene writes smoothly, if not elegantly; G. Greene led a life that deserves thousands of pages, but I know I'm not going to read thousands of pages; and the alternative, the authorized bio by Norman Sherry, is appalling. So, I'm glad this exists, although there's plenty of meat left on the bone for someone to write a biography that deals more or less exclusively with what's important about Greene (politics; literature; religion), and then someone else to write one that deals more or less exclusively with gossip and dark nights of the soul (sex; depression). That way, my people can read the first one; your people can read the second one, and perhaps we'll all be happy.
August 14, 2021
FINALLY finished this book! It was pretty good, but man, it was long! I noticed that Graham Greene's name keeps coming up in different books I read, but I've never read anything by him, or know really anything about him. But now I do! His life was crazy (novelist, world traveler, Mi6 operator, playwright, political regime influencer, human rights advocate...) and this book was thorough and detailed. Some of the references I didn't actually understand, mainly because I haven't read anything he's written.....yet.
March 11, 2024
Exceptional
I just read my first Graham Greene book, The Comedians (set in Haiti, loved it), and became curious about him. In particular, what gave him such an intimate knowledge of the setting and events. I’m looking forward to reading Our Man In Havana, so thought learning more about his life would give me a richer experience. The Unquiet Englishman, by Richard Greene (no relation) did not disappoint. What an amazing life. He had so many unique experiences in countries I haven’t learned much about. Looking forward to devouring his works.
I just read my first Graham Greene book, The Comedians (set in Haiti, loved it), and became curious about him. In particular, what gave him such an intimate knowledge of the setting and events. I’m looking forward to reading Our Man In Havana, so thought learning more about his life would give me a richer experience. The Unquiet Englishman, by Richard Greene (no relation) did not disappoint. What an amazing life. He had so many unique experiences in countries I haven’t learned much about. Looking forward to devouring his works.
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December 10, 2025It is more than I want to read about Graham Greene right now. Maybe some other time. I should try to read or reread some of his novels. I read The Third Man without enthusiasm recently but I may try to watch the video—available on Prime. I remember enjoying Travels with My Aunt—unlike most of Greene’s other works. A sad life in many ways. I read a review in the New Yorker of this book—not favorable.
August 1, 2021
It is hard to imagine a more exciting life in the 20th c. and it's all here, along with helpful entries into his work, for those who want to go deeper beyond his established classics. A really good read!
October 18, 2025
great biography
What a life he led and had….
And so many loves in addition to so many dangerous adventures…an incredible journey although I don’t think I agree with ma y of his choices
What a life he led and had….
And so many loves in addition to so many dangerous adventures…an incredible journey although I don’t think I agree with ma y of his choices
October 22, 2021
I liked the audiobook version
April 12, 2022
If you’ve loved Graham Greene’s books (perhaps not the Catholic ones), you’ll thoroughly enjoy this comprehensive analysis of his life.
Generally held superior to the Norman Sherry, this volume is also much more concise. The biographer leans Left, but so did Graham, alas, so it works out okay.
It is written in a very readable style, only occasionally lacking the Pluperfect Tense.
Generally held superior to the Norman Sherry, this volume is also much more concise. The biographer leans Left, but so did Graham, alas, so it works out okay.
It is written in a very readable style, only occasionally lacking the Pluperfect Tense.
June 12, 2022
I was looking for insight into his writing of The Quiet American but there wasn’t much here. It was mostly a boring travelogue of his life.
December 9, 2022
Very well-crafted biography but you should be familiar with the novels of the author should you plan on reading it.
March 19, 2023
Best Graham Greene bio thus far. And that's including Greene's own autobiographical works.
July 1, 2024
I read this book to learn more about Greene's novels and determine which ones I might like to read. It was a long biography with many many other "characters". Three stars.
October 15, 2024
Three paragraphs from the end of this biography, the author writes of the subject’s final, fatal illness: “The exactness of his thinking made him hard to comfort.”
October 30, 2024
Interesting man, intelligent writer, humane soul . I’m going to go read the GG’s I have not yet read. So perhaps this bio has done its job.
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