Going back to the books

With almost 30 novels to his name, Graham Greene was a prolific chronicler of human faith and wretchedness. A writer of his stature requires a very good biographer and, at first, it looked as though Greene had found him in Norman Sherry, a Joseph Conrad expert based in Texas. Sherry set to work in 1976, digging for information like a locker-room snoop. His first, 700-page volume up to 1939 scrutinised Greene’s every depression, love affair and alcoholic spree. ‘Oh why does Sherry waste so much time talking about me?’ Greene grumbled, though secretly, perhaps, he was amused by Sherry’s dedication to the task. He may even have enjoyed the vinous associations of his surname. (‘Let’s go to Sherry’s,’ by chance a gangster recommends a drinking club in Brighton Rock, adding, ‘I can’t stand the place’.)

By the time Sherry’s third and final volume appeared in 2004, it was clear how ill-served Greene had been.