The Life of Graham Greene: Volume I: 1904-1939 [Paperback]

Norman Sherry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2004

The first volume of the authorized biography of Graham Greene, reconstructs the first 35 years of Greene's life. The author has also written biographies of Joseph Conrad, Jane Austen and Charlotte and Emily Bronte.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This massive study of Greene "is riveting, going to the heart of Greene's darkly anguished worldview and the anxieties, guilts and demons that have driven him to create more than 30 novels, travel books and essay collections," lauded PW. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

"The journeys Greene made, I made," boasts Sherry. Besides tracking chronic traveler Greene, Sherry utilizes Greene's journals and correspondence as well as interviews with his friends and his estranged wife, Vivien. The picture that emerges is one of an atheist who converted to Catholicism for passion's sake, a painfully sensitive youth who transformed himself into "one of the finest novelists of his generation." This first of a projected two-volume biography concludes with the composition of Greene's masterpiece, The Power and the Glory . Few living authors have received the attention Sherry lavishes on Greene, and few have deserved it more. Essential for collections of modern literature.-- Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id. correction: Please note that the publication date of Boswell: The Great Biographer, 1789-1795, reviewed in LJ 4/1/89, has been changed. The book will be published in July or August.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 816 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (August 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142004200
• ISBN-13: 978-0142004203
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #294,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars getting to know graham greene, August 30, 2000

By 

james w. betts (honolulu, hawaii USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Life of Graham Greene: Volume I: 1904-1939 (Life of Graham Greene, 1904-1939) (Paperback)

Norman Sherry's thoughtful biography perfectly captures the early years of an honest,lonely,sensitive Englishman with privileged opportunities who becomes a successful novelist. As Sherry pointed out Greene's keen power of observation produced a cynical and realistic view of life. Burdened by anxieties but guided by his Catholic faith Greene was attracted to the epic struggles of flawed underdogs trying to cope with their transitory lives. Sherry ties all this together neatly. Its a book for leisurely reading. You will never regret its purchase.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All I ever wanted to know about GG but did not know to ask., September 25, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Dallas, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Life of Graham Greene: Volume I: 1904-1939 (Life of Graham Greene, 1904-1939) (Paperback)

This is an inspiring, detailed look at a fascinating writer, by an equally fascinating writer. The images of Norman Sherry traipsing through the jungles and Mexico, etc., give one pause and confidence. If his work on Conrad is as detailed and careful, I would suspect he could give the composition of bilge water in the hold of each ship for each trip for each book. If one ever wondered about writers and sources and inspiration and biography and art, start with volume I. You could have no finer introduction.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Through a Dark Life Obscured, June 11, 2010

By 

M. Frost - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Here is a case where an official biographer's love of his highly private subject and his desire to make more of his subject than is warranted overrides the editor's need to ensure a biography is interesting, revealing, and readable. This book is about 300 or 400 pages too long. Covering a mere 35 years of Greene's life in over 720 pages of text works out to about 20 pages for each year of his life, and Greene did little of interest for the first 20 years of his life. Almost as bad, Sherry spends too much time going through each book and regurgitates large sections of Greene's works throughout. Anyone who has read the works will be bored. This is especially true when discussing Greene's travels in Liberia and Mexico. Anyone who has read Greene's two travel books will find over 100 pages of this biography mostly a chore, since Sherry spends so much time quoting the travel books. Sherry does clearly discuss how Greene tried to be private during the creation of this biogrpaphy, not revealing what he didn't want to say and forcing Sherry to try to find the real Greene. Sherry is only moderately successful, but it doesn't appear as if he tried too hard. First, Sherry relies far too heavily on Greene's two autobiographical books--even though Sherry constantly points out the serious mistakes and evasions in each. Second, he acknowledges that Greene's diaries have certain pages missing at most interesting times, but then doesn't discuss if he ever even asked Greene to provide the answers to the missing pages. It appears Sherry chose not to dig too deeply for fear of offending Greene or his close circle of equally protective family and friends, who, given Greene's reticence, are critically necessary sources of information. Sherry's lack of objectivity and a desire not to offend seems most in evidence when Sherry spends so little time discussing what a horrible father and husband Greene was, attempting throughout to show that the constantly philandering and absent Greene still somehow truly loved his suffering wife and neglected children. One example of the frustration of this biography: Sherry discusses Greene's sex drive at some length, including his adulterous behavior, with and without prostitutes; however, Sherry doesn't even pinpoint the time, date, place, or person with whom Greene lost his virginity, and the reader had to wait until page 374, the year 1927, before Sherry gives some short shrift to the 23-year-old "young and highly-sexed Greene".