Description

WINNER OF THE CRIMEFEST HRF KEATING AWARD

A Times Best Literature Book of the Year 2023
A Financial Times Book of the Year 2023
A Spectator Book of the Year 2023
A Daily Express Best Book of 2023

‘A fascinating, revelatory appendix … providing new insights into the inner workings of the man who created George Smiley’ ‘Best Books of the Year 2023’, Financial Times

‘Sisman can set the record straight’ ‘Books of the Year 2023’, The Sunday Times

‘Complex and consequential … casts le Carre’s life and writing in a fresh light … a fascinating examination of the biographer’s art’ Washington Post

‘Now that he is dead, we can know him better.’

Secrecy came naturally to John le Carre, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Nowhere was this more so than in his private life. Apparently content in his marriage, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over four decades. To keep these relationships secret, he made use of tradecraft that he had learned as a spy: code names and cover stories, cut outs, safe houses and dead letter boxes.

Such affairs introduced both jeopardy and excitement into what was otherwise a quiet, ordered life. Le Carre seemed to require the stimulus they provided in order to write, though this meant deceiving those closest to him. It is no coincidence that betrayal became a recurrent theme in his work.

Adam Sisman’s definitive biography, published in 2015, revealed much about the elusive spy-turned-novelist; yet le Carre was adamant that some subjects should remain hidden, at least during his lifetime. The Secret Life of John le Carre is the story of what was left out, and offers reflections on the difficult relationship between biographer and subject. More than that, it adds a necessary coda to the life and work of this complex, driven, restless man.

The Secret Life of John le Carre reveals a hitherto-hidden perspective on the life and work of the spy-turned-author and a fascinating meditation on the complex relationship between biographer and subject. ‘Now that he is dead,’ Sisman writes, ‘we can know him better.’

Publisher Review

A completely fascinating and revelatory book, written with great sagacity, candour and judiciousness -- William Boyd, author * Any Human Heart * Few writers have curated their image so effectively as John le Carre. In this page-turning follow-up to his 2015 biography, published when his subject was still kickingly alive, Adam Sisman completes the task of showing us who he was - a minor spy who became a major novelist, whose most important agents in the field were the women he needed to love and then betray. For le Carre, tradecraft was lovecraft. Much more than What Was Left Out, The Secret Life of John le Carre is not merely the conclusive homage to a compulsively fascinating character, but an insightful study into the biographical process itself. Even David Cornwell, the man who actually was John le Carre, would have saluted him -- Nicholas Shakespeare Praise for John le Carre: The Biography * : * A perceptive and elegant interpreter of complex lives -- Jonathan Dimbleby, on 'John le Carre: The Biography' The best biography of 2015 - a rare achievement that invites rereading * Independent * Compendious and compelling...Sisman is excellent * New Statesman * Smiley himself could not have done a better job * The Times * Balanced, focused and compelling * Economist * Sisman often came to know the reality of what happened in Cornwell's life better than Cornwell himself did * Newsweek * This book is testament to Sisman's skill and perseverance ... Sisman brings admirable clarity to what could have been a meander in a wilderness of mirrors * Spectator *