c. 1994.
Hardcopy. autographed!
From the dust jacket:
The first volume of Norman Sherry's fascinating biography of Graham Greene won an Edgar Allan Poe Award and accolades from all quarters. Now in Volume Two, Sherry reveals Greene as a great novelist at the height of his powers and one of the most enigmatic figures of this century. Despite his legendary reticence about his own private life, Greene entrusted his papers and recorded confidences only to Sherry, chosen by Greene to be his distinguished scholar-sleuth.
This book covers the most creative period of Greene's life, when he wrote not only some of his best novels -- among them The Ministry of Fear, The Heart of the Matter, The End of the Affair, and The Quiet American -- but also collaborated with Carol Reed on the films The Fallen Idol and The Third Man.
More later.
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Introduction/Foreword
Written in San Antonio.
A nice review: "Before The War: 1904 - 1939
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Part I
War
Chapter 1: Rumours at Nightfall
After severe dysentery in Mexico, 1938, Greene returns to England in May, 1938, with vital material which enabled him to produce his brilliant travel book The Lawless Roads and his greatest novel The Power and the Glory, but it was material which reflected his dislike: "I hate this country and this people."
London: culture shock
Mexico to London; and,
eve of war
Page 17: war declared, September 3, 1939, after Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and refused to withdraw.
Chapter 2: Enter Dorothy
Dorothy began in 1938 or 1939, when I found it impossible to work at home because of the children. I saw an advertisement for a studio to be rented in Mecklenburgh Square. I went there where Dorothy was living with her mother. It was just a work room ... it wasn't a studio in the French sense with a bed ... It was simply a room to work in. That is how we met. And she reduced the price because she thought I looked rather poor and I was a poor struggling author.
Chapter 3: The Ministry and the Glory
The first six months of the year passed with only limited military action.
Chapter 4: The Blitz
The blitz on London began on September 7, 1940.
Chapter 5: The Destructors
Greene's journal for April 16, 1941, records the madhouse remembered by Londoners as "The Wednesday." In a single night, 2,000 civilians died and 100,000 homes were destroyed, as central London experienced its worst raid.
Chapter 6; Trivial Comedies, Shallow Tragedies
Greene was almost single-handedly running the arts section of the Spectator in 1941, for as well as writing book and film reviews, he was going to whatever live theatre was on offer, especially reviews, both before and during the evening blitz. Greene had always been a lover of revues, he had gone to them since childhood and enjoyed them without any sense of smugness; he understood them on their own simple terms.
Part 2
Africa
Chapter 7: School for Spies
December, 1940: applying for SIS/MI6
Chapter 8: Return to Africa
December 8, 1941: Greene arrived in Liverpool; the day the Japanese landed in Thailand and northeast Malaya, and the US declared war on Japan
On/about December 26, 1941, just after Christmas, Greene arrived in west Africa, where "he was to lose his heart a second time."
Chapter 9: The Soupsweet Land
Waited six days on board the ship before disembarking. He went ashore the day following his arrival, but returned to sleep on the ship for another week.
Chapter 10: Our Man in Freetown
Freetown, Sierra Leone
Chapter 11: A Mad Cook, a Suicide, and a Nest of Toads
Part 3
The Long War Ending
Chapter 12: Carving Brighton Rock
Chapter 13: Agents Three: Greene, Muggeridge and Philby
Chapter 14: From Spy to Publisher
Begins with "the dream." Still working with MI6.
Chapter 15: The Unquiet Peace
March 20, 1945: Greene recorded what must have been the last V2 to hit London.
Part 4
Time of Catherine
Chapter 16: The Heart of the Matter
Postwar years: Greene's most productive and most emotionally wrenching period of his life.
Chapter 17: The Thin Man and Other Friends
September 1947.
Chapter 18: Love as a Fever
Felt himself to be a truer Catholic with Catherine, though he had converted to win Vivien.
Chapter 19: Private Wars
Death of Vivien Greene's marriage.
Chapter 20: A Vulgar Success
The Heart of the Matter
Chapter 21: A Boston Tea Party
Emerges as a playwright, 1949, The Heart of the Matter.
Chapter 22: Wildly, Crazily, Hopelessly
His affair with Catherine continues.
Part 5
The Death Seeker
Chapter 23: War of the Running Dogs
Catherine problems; Malaya.
Chapter 24: Bonjour Saigon
Vietnam: civil war.
Chapter 25: Interlude on Elsewhere
The Elsewhere: Korda's yacht on the Aegean.
Chapter 26: A Crown of Thorns
Questions his belief in survival after death.
Chapter 27: A Quiet American
The Quiet American
Chapter 28: Innocence Abroad
The "Pyle" character.
Chapter 29: Death in rue Catinat
January 5, 1952.
Part 6
To America with Love
Chapter 30: Visa Not for Sale
1953
Chapter 31: Drama and the Man
Solo stage play.
Chapter 32: Among the Mau Mau
The "Anglo-Texan Society."
Chapter 33: No Man Is Neutral
Unofficial ombudsman.
Chapter 34: The Honourable Correspondent and the Dishonourable Friend
Still Vietnam.
Chapter 35: White Night in Albany
Update on Catherine. Relations strained.
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