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Home , Our Man in Havana

Mansfield: Christopher Hull: Our Man Down in : The Story Behind Graham

REVIEW seem unsure whether Greene brought this about deliberately or not. The book “It’s Like Waiting for a is helpfully divided into sections, Bus”: Two Books about chapters, and sub-sections, so a reader intent on looking up a particular subject Our Man in Havana or time-period will do so easily. However, a thorough reading from #1 cover to cover is recommended as there Creina Mansfield are hidden gems throughout. Who knew, for example, that Greene once shared a

hotel room with Truman Capote? His Christopher Hull, Our Man Down in description of him as “an extraordinary Havana: The Story Behind Graham little fat babyish figure, a fairy to end all Greene’s Spy Novel. New fairies, but very endearing and very York: Pegasus Books, 2019. funny” suggests that he got on better

with Capote than with Cuba’s most This is a book that deserves a wide famous literary resident, Ernest readership. It will be useful both to Hemingway who, Hull speculates, newcomers to Greene’s work and resented Greene trespassing on his turf. provides fresh information and insights Hull gives due weight to Greene’s to those who have long been devotees. states of mind and his love affairs Christopher Hull has wisely taken a without allowing them to become narrative approach to his material, preoccupying. Attention remains on the thereby providing a biography of creative process. By chapter 8 of Our Greene’s life leading up to his writing of Man Down in Havana, we read a Our Man in Havana and setting it in its detailed description of the making of the political context. film. Though it followed soon after the He meticulously identifies the novel, Cuba had changed. Castro’s threads that became entwined in the revolution transformed the political novel. From the early formation of the atmosphere with the new government idea of a reluctant spy fabricating a wanting to convey that the country was network of agents to details such as the no longer the “whorehouse of the possible origin of the name Wormold, he Caribbean”; this perhaps contributed to leads us toward the day actual writing the “interesting failure” of the completed began. By this method the reader film. appreciates that the creative process The extraordinary prescience of Our began years before Greene wrote the Man in Havana is fully explored. How first words. remarkable that, as rumors of rocket Why Our Man Down in Havana? Is installations circulated, the head of the it to imply the seediness that became Foreign Office’s American department Greene’s trademark, one half, so to should annotate a report on the subject speak of Orwell’s down and out? with, “Mr Greene was prophetic.” The Certainly, Hull’s chapter on “Havana followed. Vice” is fascinating: he recreates the I began by describing this book as atmosphere of pre-revolutionary Cuba useful. I must emphasize that it is also and gives a convincing account of how extremely enjoyable. No one will already Greene came to be barred from entering know everything that this book holds; no the United States—commentators often

285 Published by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository, 2020 1 Studies, Vol. 2 [2020], Art. 22

one should fail to be impressed. One would like to congratulate Dr. Hull, but since his biographical details have a Greene-ish reticence—we are told only that “He lives in England”—he will be difficult to find.

Creina Mansfield is an English author and independent scholar, concentrating on the life and works of Graham Greene.

286 https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/ggs/vol2/iss1/22 2