Jay Parini, the distinguished American writer and academic, has turned his attention to Graham Greene and in particular to Greene’s time in Sierra Leone working for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) during the Second World War. This article was first published in issue 93 (February 2023) of A Sort of Newsletter, the quarterly magazine of the Graham Greene Birthplace Trust edited by Mike Hill, with all requisite permissions granted.
L
JAY PARINI
Greene in Africa
I met Graham Greene in Italy once, in the mid-eighties, at a lunch with Shirley Hazzard, and I went to visit him in Antibes the following summer, spending roughly a week there, where every day we would have talks about his life and work. In the evening we always had dinner at a lovely restaurant where he often ate. They knew exactly what marvelous wine to bring, and I don’t even think we ordered. The food just arrived. And we talked late into the evening.
Greene was terrific company: obviously bright and knowledgeable, with good humor and a kind of emotional steadiness that I admired. It seemed hard-won, the product of a lifetime of thought and work.
We often talked about Christianity, as it was a passion of mine, and he seemed more than willing to talk frankly about his faith. I remember him saying that doubt was a huge part of his own journey, and that he was a ‘lapsed’ Catholic who nevertheless attended mass now and then. Indeed, on a Sunday morning one day he took me along to the local church, where he seemed quite active in the liturgy, although I recall that he didn’t take communion. Afterward, we chatted with the local priest, who seemed on very good terms with him.
On my last evening with Greene, I asked him if there was a time in his life that had been especially key in the writing of his books. He said, ‘What are my best books, in your estimate?’ I named The Heart of the Matter and The Quiet American as personal favorites. He brightened, and said these felt very close to him, books that had been important for him. He began to reminisce about his time in Sierra Leone, in 1941, saying how crucial that time had been for, in fact, both of these later books. He mentioned an affair he’d had with the wife of a colonial officer, and how this had led to hideous complications, especially when a younger man he knew began to have an affair with her as well. The complications multiplied, and Greene said he felt ‘indirectly implicated’ in a covert operation that had resulted in the death of the young man. When Kim Philby, who was ‘running’ Greene in West Africa from London, heard about this, Greene was immediately brought back to London. Greene said that Philby had personally stopped to see him on his way back from South Africa on a secret mission.
I later talked to several of Greene’s friends about this story, including Anthony Powell, whom I knew. He told me to take it with a grain of salt, but he said it would be ‘emotionally true’ in some way.
This story, true or untrue, forms the basis of my new novel, GREENE IN AFRICA. It’s focused on this period in Greene’s life, and it involves a combination of actual and fictional characters. But it sticks close to the main biographical facts in Greene’s life. I’ve written novels about Tolstoy, Walter Benjamin, and Melville in this vein. In essence, I thought of myself as writing a Graham Greene ‘entertainment’ featuring Greene himself. It’s written in the third person, as I didn’t want to try to imitate Greene’s actual voice; but it’s a third-person limited point of view, and it stays close to the consciousness of Greene. So it’s almost in the first person.
Greene was writing The Ministry of Fear at this time, so that features prominently in the book. In fact, I tried to get something of that wonderful novel’s momentum and paranoia, with the atmosphere of the Blitz in the background. Part of my novel, in fact, is about Greene’s experience of the Blitz, which features as a kind of emotional backdrop to the things happening in Freetown.
Of course I went to Freetown myself to explore the scene of the novel, seeking out Greene’s old house, his office in the headquarters of the SLPF (Sierra Leone Police Force), the area in the Hill Station area where Greene often visited the local colonial club, and so forth. It was extremely useful just to get the feel of the country, with its sights and sounds, to study the local flora and fauna, to stand on Lumley Beach at sunset and dawn, as Greene had done, taking in the salmon-colored light, the brisk sea breeze, and to experience the humid daily atmosphere of this unique West African country.