The Secret Life of John le Carre by Adam Sisman

Author:Adam Sisman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

Five

An epistolary romance

In the autumn of 1993 David received a fan letter from a reader in Los Angeles, who had been prompted to read The Night Manager after seeing him talking about it on television. She deplored the fact that such a serious novel should be stocked in the ‘mystery’ section of the bookstores. In his reply, he thanked her for writing ‘so interestingly . . . I was very touched by all you had to say, and fascinated by many of your insights.’ She wrote again, and a correspondence began that would last more than two years. Because they lived so far apart, their relationship was almost entirely epistolary, but it quickly became intimate. Though David’s first letter was typed, all his subsequent letters were handwritten, most of them early in the morning, or late at night, often with a glass of whisky at his side. What she had written had piqued his interest and made him want to continue the contact. ‘You write a lovely letter,’ he told her. ‘I really enjoy knowing you. Are you safe? Who are you?’

She was Susan Anderson, a museum curator and published poet with ambitions to write fiction herself, successful in her career but discontented in her marriage and ready for an adventure. I was unaware of her existence until I came across two letters David wrote to her in the collection edited by his son Tim and published in 2022. I made contact with her by email, and subsequently we had several long conversations via Zoom. It cannot have been easy for her to discuss her intimate past with a complete stranger, and I was impressed by her frankness, articulacy and insight.

She told me that she had never before read John le Carré when she happened to catch the episode of The Charlie Rose Show in which David was interviewed for an hour, talking both about The Night Manager (then recently published) and more generally about what he would write now that the Cold War was over. By this time in his early sixties, he looked healthy and relaxed, wearing an open-necked denim shirt which contrasted with the suit worn by his interviewer. As always he spoke fluently and eloquently, in a soft, mellifluous voice. To Susan he appeared both vital and handsome. She had been delighted by the progressive views he expressed, especially his disparagement of empire.

Though normally snooty about ‘thrillers’, Susan had been persuaded to buy his book, and had read it on a trip to the Caribbean, where much of the action of the novel was set. By the time she returned, she was ‘a bit obsessed’. She had just turned forty, which seemed to her a landmark in her life. She longed to be a mature, desired woman, ‘like Jeanne Moreau: no longer girlish, but ripe, alluring, and wise’, as she put it. Her letters have not survived, but she kept all of his, which makes it possible to trace the history of their relationship in detail.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.