The Life of Graham Greene (1955-1991) Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Norman Sherry

  List of Illustrations

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Finding Greene

  The Way It Was: 1904–1955

  PART 1 – Novelist as Playwright

  1 1991: Our Man Dying

  2 His Noble Head of Hair (The Delilah Twist)

  3 Greene on Broadway

  4 Secrets of The Potting Shed

  PART 2 – Little Miss Lolita

  5 Is It Pornography?

  PART 3 – Affairs Won

  6 Love’s Blind Dance

  7 Actress in the Wings

  PART 4 – Spy Mission: More Clouseau than Bond

  8 Cursing the Dragon

  PART 5 – Affairs Lost

  9 I Only Have Eyes for You … and You

  10 Lovers Come Tumbling Down

  PART 6 – From London Books to Cuban Crooks

  11 Publishing Redux

  12 Heroes and Heroines

  13 Some Fidelistas, a Film and a Firing Squad

  PART 7 – Entering Father Damien Country

  14 Another Escape Route

  15 In Search of a Character

  16 Down Tributaries of the River Congo: Happy Priests and a Gloomy Wanderer

  17 The Trouble with Being Querry

  18 Parkinson’s Dis-ease

  PART 8 – The New Master of Farce

  19 Graham’s Final Success in the Theatre

  PART 9 – Incessant Wanderer

  20 Round the World in Forty-Five Days

  21 I Shall Arise and Go Now

  22 Crossing the Shadow-Line

  PART 10 – Intimations of Mortality

  23 Death Is a Mole

  PART 11 – Carving Two Failures

  24 A Flop of Biblical Proportions

  25 More Naked Than the Law Allows

  PART 12 – Voodoo Doc’s Republic of Fear

  26 Prelude in Blood

  27 Killing Is My Pleasure

  PART 13 – Coming Up Close to Creativity

  28 Two Shades of Greene

  29 To Haiti by Sea

  30 The Real Mr Jones

  PART 14 – The ‘Priest Thing’

  31 He’s Over the Wall

  PART 15 – Farewell and a Kiss

  32 Bonjour la France (’Twas a Bad Year for Pigs)

  33 Le Petit Chat

  34 Warming Up to the Cold Scots

  35 Confessions Near an Egyptian Shore

  PART 16 – A Weird Speech and a Zany Aunt

  36 The Virtue of Disloyalty

  37 A Strange Dottoressa

  PART 17 – A Masterpiece from the Old Fox

  38 How Not to Snatch a Diplomat

  39 ‘As Mystery-Laden as Life Itself’

  40 The Ultimate Story

  PART 18 – Torrijos and Buying Bullets

  41 My Pal the General

  42 That Old Goat and the Dictator in a Hammock

  43 Dashing Around Central America …

  PART 19 – The Girl with the Coral Harp Bracelet

  44 His True Love Dies

  PART 20 – Going Out with a Bang

  45 Angry Old Man

  46 Toe to Toe with the French Mafia

  PART 21 – Windmills of Doubt

  47 Sancho and the Saint

  48 The Lamb and the Lion: What Did Greene Believe?

  PART 22 – Accolades and Black Eyes

  49 Raise the Plague Flag!

  50 Kudos in a Bundle

  51 A Kinder, Gentler Moscow

  52 Boxing with Burgess

  PART 23 – Final Hurrahs

  53 Greene’s Last Stand

  54 Hugh and Elisabeth

  PART 24 – 1991: Our Man Dead

  55 Our Man Dead

  Leaving Greene

  Picture Section

  Notes

  Acknowledgments

  Appendix 1

  Appendix 2

  Selected Bibliography – by David Leon Higdon, PhD, Horn Professor of Literature, Texas Tech University

  Index

  Picture Credits

  Copyright

  About the Book

  The much-anticipated third and final volume of Norman Sherry’s biography follows the tireless wanderings of Graham Greene, the writer’s final forays into the fulminating trouble spots of the world which beckoned as sirens all his days. From the perils of Batista’s Cuba, the privations of the Belgian Congo and the tumult of Haiti, Nicaragua and Panama, to his confrontation with the French mafia, his travels in Spain and, finally, his quiet death in Switzerland at the age of eighty-six. The rigour and attention to detail that gained praise for the first two volumes remains undiminished as Sherry retraces Greene’s footsteps, criss-crossing the globe to visit the places that inspired Greene’s novels and meeting the people who provided the models for some of literature’s most memorable characters: the whiskey priest; the honorary consul; the zany aunt. Never losing sight of the very real religious, emotional and political struggles that made up Greene’s complicated personality – his constantly questioned but never abandoned Catholicism, his two long-term affairs with married women, his determination to stand up for the victims of injustice – Sherry illuminates Greene’s mind, methods and motivation with an unswervingly critical, yet always compassionate eye. With exclusive access to Greene’s letters, journals and dream-diaries, Norman Sherry has written a monumental tribute to one of the greatest of English writers. The three volumes of The Life of Graham Greene will remain the standard work on Greene for decades to come.

  About the Author

  Norman Sherry, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Mitchell Distinguished Professor of Literature at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, is also the author of Conrad's Eastern World, Conrad's Western World, Charlotte and Emily Brontë and Jane Austen.

  Also by Norman Sherry

  CONRAD’S EASTERN WORLD

  JANE AUSTEN

  CHARLOTTE AND EMILY BRONTË

  CONRAD’S WESTERN WORLD

  CONRAD AND HIS WORLD

  CONRAD: THE CRITICAL HERITAGE

  CONRAD IN CONFERENCE

  THE LIFE OF GRAHAM GREENE, VOLUME ONE: 1904–1939

  THE LIFE OF GRAHAM GREENE, VOLUME TWO: 1939–1955

  List of Illustrations

  1. Norman Sherry in Mexico, seeking the originals used in The Power and the Glory

  2. Greene and his sister Elisabeth Dennys at Gemma’s Restaurant, Capri

  3. Paul Scofield as the Whisky Priest in the play of The Power and the Glory

  4. Carol Lynley near the time of The Potting Shed

  5. Carmen Capalbo

  6. Anita Björk dressed for a part

  7. Catherine Walston

  8. John Gordon

  9. Vladimir Nabokov

  10. Charles and Oona Chaplin

  11. Jesús Sosa Blanco unsuccessfully defended himself: ‘By God, I’m no murderer!’

  12. While filming Our Man in Havana: Alec Guinness, Carol Reed, Maureen O’Hara, Ernie Kovacs, Noël Coward and Greene

  13. Entrance to leper colony at Yonda, Congo

  14. Greene with Dr Michel Lechat

  15. Filariasis (elephantiasis) of the scrotum: ‘It seems unfair, doesn’t it, to suffer all that and leprosy too.’ (Dr Colin in A Burnt-Out Case)

  16. Père Georges and Père Henri

  17. The bishop’s paddle steamer on a tributary of the River Congo

  18. Suky, Margaret, Nick, Christine and Chris Lipscomb, Flandria 1958

  19. Time magazine, 29 October 1951

  20. John Gielgud and
Greene at a rehearsal of the English production of The Potting Shed

  21. The bungalow Greene and Michael Meyer shared in Tahiti

  22. Michael Meyer and Greene in Tahiti

  23. Evelyn Waugh with ear trumpet

  24. Sir Ralph Richardson

  25. Husband and wife artists Harry Gottlieb and Eugenie Gershoy

  26. Sketch showing the variety of Aubelin Jolicoeur’s personality

  27. Françoise ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier with Tonton Macoute bodyguard

  28. The Barbot brothers, Clément and Harry

  29. ‘Famed novelist, Graham Greene’ at the Galleon Club, Jamaica

  30. A dapper Jolicoeur (‘Petit Pierre’) on the steps of the Oloffson Hotel (The Comedians’ Trianon)

  31. Father Thomas Gilby

  32. ‘A list of prostitutes Graham Greene had as a young man’ (see Appendix 2)

  33. Greene on his way to receive an honorary doctorate at Cambridge University, 1962

  34. The Dottoressa Moor

  35. Greene and Yvonne Cloetta in Antibes apartment

  36. A mischievous Greene, circa 1969

  37. Greene returns to the City Hotel in Freetown, Sierra Leone

  38. Greene with Mario Soldati in Freetown

  39. Poster of Jesus with a rifle slung over his shoulder, distributed in Argentina and other South American nations by Cuban government information service

  40. General Omar Torrijos

  41. Greene with Daniel Ortega

  42. An older Catherine Walston

  43. Postcard of church at Thriplow which Greene bought and marked with an X the spot where Catherine is buried

  44. Greene with Bryan Forbes in Antibes, 1981

  45. Greene’s last trip to America, Georgetown University, 7 October 1985

  46. Greene with his brother Hugh and sister Elisabeth Dennys

  47. ‘His Eminence, Cardinal Greene’, from Punch

  48. The monastery at Osera

  49. Greene with ‘his’ Father Durán

  50. Greene with Yvonne Cloetta in Tomsk, 1987

  51. At the awarding of the GPA Prize, Greene, Gerry Dukes, John Banville, Vincent O’Donnell, Shane Connaughton, Aidan Mathews and Seamus Heaney

  52. A no-longer-angry old man

  53. Farewells: to the left in hat and glasses is Greene’s wife, Vivien; behind and to the right their daughter Caroline. On the far right is Yvonne (with white hair), clinging to her daughter Martine’s arm

  54. Finally at peace

  In memory of

  the remarkable Walter Adams,

  & the unforgettable Michael Meyer

  For dear friends:

  Nicholas Scheetz,

  Jacqueline Loomis Quillen,

  Bernard Lifshutz,

  Russell E. Newell,

  & George & Nannette Herrick

  And the jewels in my crown:

  Ileana Taylor Sherry

  & John Michael Graham Sherry

  Finding Greene

  Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;

  Nothing’s so hard but search will find it out.

  – ROBERT HERRICK

  BECAUSE GRAHAM GREENE’S wide-ranging activities spanned most of the twentieth century, I found I was writing not only his story, but our history as well. Greene’s life touched, and his work transfixed, as an insect in amber, many major events of our time: the First World War; the General Strike; the Great Depression; the Second World War; bitter civil wars in Liberia, Mexico and Vietnam; Mau Mau atrocities in Kenya; the War of the Running Dogs in Malaya; Cold War espionage; McCarthyism of the 1950s; the political strongmen of the postwar era – François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier of Haiti; Cuba’s Castro; the Sandinistas of Nicaragua; Panama’s General Omar Torrijos; and the Milieu (the French mafia) in Marseilles.

  Greene’s travels to the world’s trouble spots bespeak an adventurous soul, his constant explorative journeys a throwback to Livingstone and Stanley, Burton and Speke – a Victorian schoolboy’s dream fulfilled. Yet Greene was motivated by the daring of despair; he sought dare-devilish disaster in lost, forgotten places with the persistence of a determined suicide. If death had come, his diaries reveal, he would have welcomed it.

  Greene was a novelist with a massive curiosity. His method was to observe his age, and as that age changed from decade to decade, he reflected the changes in successive novels. He marched with the times, and his manic-depressive nature forced him to seek stimulation and diversion through events reflecting the dangerous extremes of the day. His urge to fence with a violent death made him a vital centre from which our age can be seen. Though there are in any age many centres, a passage from George Eliot’s Middlemarch fits:

  Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed … will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun … These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of [a] person.

  Seeing biography as history from the singular perspective of a novelist, the standard of a research scientist, seeking truth without deviation, is imperative. As in science, biography involves constant testing of theories about the subject by the measurement of what one knows; and what one knows, over the years, grows and grows like the fabled beanstalk.

  It would have been easier to have had a specific point of view, to have looked at Greene through a template of excessive admiration or excessive hate (and indeed, one memorialist has done the former, one biographer the latter). Such a method dramatically reduces the scope of research that is ultimately undertaken, since conclusions have already been reached before the research begins. If one is ready-armed to see only what one wishes to see, truth is never served. Using such a method, one is not looking for the complicated man standing there, but only for the partial evidence which will either glorify or beggar the writer’s view of the nature of the subject.

  The Greene whom his friends recognise is not to be seen. Given the variety of Greene’s nature, it is not difficult to see him as someone who might be consumed by hatred, calculating in his malice – but he was not. It is never that easy. To use George Eliot’s parable: the scratches are world events and Greene’s reportage of them, so his scratches are to be found on many parts of the globe, and whilst he carried his singular personality around with him, its very singularity lies in its immense diversity. The research demanded even simply to touch upon the truth of Greene is perpetually challenging.

  *

  For many of us, Graham Greene was the most distinguished author of his era. Whatever his faults – he could be petty, he could be juvenile – he was yet magnanimous (the good often kept secret; his myriad kindnesses, alas, only inadvertently unearthed). His trips to brothels, his visits to opium dens in Vietnam, his smoking dope in London (yes, he did inhale), in retrospect seem minor misdeeds. He was special, unquestionably so, but also inevitably human and he suffered for his terrible curiosity about the world.

  Greene’s life was hounded by two contending elements in his nature: the strong conflict between his manic and his depressive sides. There were many occasions when Greene had an exuberant vitality, when to breathe was to enjoy. At such times, he was great good company, leaping from topic to topic seemingly with abandon. But his depressions were severe, and if he sometimes hated the world, then he hated himself more. Life became a dark tide; he felt the weight of every possible sin as he sank into the depths. On such occasions, one noticed how wooden and desperate and full of self-blame he seemed. And Roman Catholic convert though he was, he then doubted there was a God in the universe.

  During these moments the plague spot of depression fostered his formidable desire for self-destruction. Sometimes he set the date for his death, saving up sleeping pills because he wanted a termination point for his unhappiness. For a long time, Greene could visualise not heaven – on
ly hell, with any sort of intimacy, and it was the hell of James Joyce that he envisioned: ‘There by reason of the great number of the damned, the prisoners are heaped together in their awful prison … the damned … are not even able to remove from the eye a worm that gnaws it … All the filth of the world, all the offal and scum … shall run there as to a vast reeking sewer.’

  Even though Greene became a Catholic while an undergraduate – to induce the young Catholic Vivien Dayrell-Browning to marry him – there came a time in his life, within three years of the marriage, when he needed his Catholic God with a vengeance as he concerned himself with the struggle in the human soul between good and evil. His absorption with this struggle is best put by Frederic Raphael, as recalled to me by my dear friend Barbara Wall: ‘If God could count every hair on your head, Greene did not fail to draw attention to the dandruff.’ Like his character Bendrix in The End of the Affair, God was hounding Greene and Greene wanted this to be so. Greene’s emotional pain and exhilaration were high at such moments. He took the Catholic creed to heart: ‘Goodness has only once found a perfect incarnation in a human body, and never will again.’

  *

  I have a further purpose in writing biography. As in my earlier work on Joseph Conrad, I’ve tried to search out sources of Greene’s work, seeking the origins, techniques and models that stand behind his fictional characters and settings. In this way, the author’s originality is more effectively revealed, the operation of the creative imagination sometimes delicately pinned down.

  I began with a withering notion that no man travels through life without leaving tracks, that nothing comes from nothing. So I sought, in visiting Mexico forty years after Greene had been there, to follow in his tracks, trying to recreate (which is only marginally possible) the total experience in a particular area at a particular time: to see and feel what Greene saw and felt, trying to submerge and steep myself in his life. To the extent that this can be done, we are in a position to see what Greene saw and, more important, to have a sense of what he used and what he discarded in his work.

  Once the original events have been brought back from the black hole of lost time, we can observe those changes which a creative mind necessarily makes. We look over the writer’s shoulder, watching his immersion in personal experience, based on common talk, report and rumour. Greene was particularly adept at seeking the inner truth of his material, getting at another’s corruption (and his own), fleshing out the features of the characters he met: his and their pleasures, deep distresses, their fantasies, common and uncommon from childhood to dying.