The 12-year affair between Graham Greene and Catherine Walston, the sexually adventurous 1940s and 1950s society hostess, was only made public in a silence-shattering article in "The Sunday Times" after Greene's death in 1991. It was a relationship that was to have crucial creative and destructive effects on the lovers and also their contemporaries - in particular their partners - and was the direct inspiration for a work regarded by many as Greene's masterpiece, "The End of the Affair", dedicated to "C" and praised by William Faulkner as "one of the most true and moving novels in anybody's language". Exploring the creative debt that literature owes to adultery (what Greene himself called "the necessity of sin") and re-encountering the physical landscape of their romance - from Rules restaurant in Covent Garden where they had dinner before making illicit love for the first time in a cheap Paddington hotel in 1947, to Tuscany where it is alleged that the couple had sex behind a succession of church altars (Greene's unusual way of dealing with Catholicism) - this volume seeks to unravel the enigma of Graham Greene as well as offer a compelling literary detective story.
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Amazon Review
At the age of 43, Graham Greene, successful author and married Catholic, met and began an affair with Catherine Walston, a 30-year old American beauty, also married. Catherine was a pure femme fatale, stringing along several lovers simultaneously, and generally driving men mad. Her affair with Greene lasted 15 years, and not 13, as has hitherto been believed--one of Cash's new findings--and it included a bizarre exchange of secret (and of course completely meaningless) "marriage vows" in Tunbridge Wells Catholic church. All in all, it was a story, in William Cash's words, of "deep betrayal, sexual obsession, jealousy, hatred, tortured religiosity, despair, blasphemy and literary revenge." Cash has had privileged access to 1,200 of Greene's love letters and poems (not all of them very impressive) and makes judicious use of them. On the other hand, the text appears hastily edited and, unusually for a book of this kind, it has no index or bibliography. Cash also has a habit of interpolating his own thoughts, feelings and experiences into the text, which worked to better effect in, say, Peter Ackroyd's monumental biography of Dickens but here it can seem too much like mere egotism. So: yes, there are some new findings and it reads briskly. But if you really want a trip to that strange, bleak country of Greeneland, The Third Woman would be better read in tandem with Greene's own novel on the same subject, The End of the Affair. --Christopher Hart
Review
'A remarkable achievement...His eye for telling detail is acute.' -- SPECTATOR
'Compelling reading' -- FINANCIAL TIMES
*'A succinct masterpiece' -- A N Wilson, EVENING STANDARD --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
'Compelling reading' -- FINANCIAL TIMES
*'A succinct masterpiece' -- A N Wilson, EVENING STANDARD --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I read this book after seeing it written up by A.N Wilson in The Evening Standard. I thought he was probably going over the top by calling it a "masterpiece" but understood why after I put it down at 4 a.m in the morning. Cash's book is not any sort of conventional biography -- we hardly need another after Sherry's 1000 page tomb --- rather it offers a fascinating insight into relaionship between literary creativity and sexual passion, or as Cash puts it, "the creative debt that literature owes to adultery". Cash is like the detective Parkis in The End of the Affair, trailing Greene and Walston around the various scenes of their passion -- Europe, America, London --and assiduously puts together a compelling file which seems to back up Cyril Connolly's famous view that the true function of a writer is to create a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consequence. Cash has somehow had extraordinary access to Greene's love letters, which makes for a much more balanced picture of Greene than I 've ever read before. Far from being a cold monster, he appears as a flawed, tormented genius. Cash has a habit of straying a bit too often into the narrative, but his tone is sharp and there are moments of high comedy.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By warthog
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Having read the Graham Greene biographies by Norman Sherry, I was pleased to discover this account of his long affair with Catherine Walston. The book goes into greater depth of the torment he suffered during the years with her and how much his obsession with her influenced his writing. It also gives a great insight into the dual life of the catholic clergy and her affairs with a couple of them. I found this an incredible book. The characters did not conform in the slightest to the social mores of the day and yet there was the constant reminder that they were practising catholics and Greene was forever tormented by his wrongdoing. I would recommend this book highly. It gives yet another insight into the mind of one of the world's greatest writers
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars
5 reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
The real story - at last.
6 Jan 2001
By Dr Joanna Bratten
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
After the hulabaloo of the recent film version of The End of the Affair, William Cash's book was a timely arrival, and a refreshing one. Like Cash, many Greene scholars feel that Greene's works are too frequently confused with his life. Art and life are distinct enough with most writers, but Greene more so, as he himself made many requests to his reading public to please not confuse his fiction with fact. Neil Jordan's film, however well-done, fell into this confusing fact with fiction trap, and even went so far as to cast Julianne Moore in the role of Sarah because she so resembled Catherine Walston (despite the fact that she does not fit the description of Sarah Miles). Cash's book blows open the doors that have been shut too long on the real story of the 'end of the affair' and shows us how different, in fact, Greene's relationship was from Bendrix's.
Cash's research, which was carefully and meticulously done, is written out in a clear and readable style, and his collections of anecdotes and new stories (so much, after all, has already been written) makes the book a goldmine for a Greene scholar. Cash's interview(s) with Vivien Greene, in particular, are valuable in what they tell us about their marriage and about Greene as a person - Greene's faults are laid open for us all to see, and while some of what is revealed pains the reader, it is helpful, all the same, in putting Greene's work in perspective to his life.
An impressive piece of writing overall and a much-needed contribution to the vast field of Greene scholarship. However, the main shortcoming of the book is that it lacks an index, and should a second edition be in the works, it would much behoove Cash to compile one.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Intriguing!
24 Nov 2000
By Ruth
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
I am a lover of Greene's books and one of my all time favourite books is the End of The Affair so i enjoyed this immensely. It really made me appreciate what a complex person Greene was. I found myself being drawn in on what are at times quite mundane facts but nonetheless facinating. Catherine Walston remains a mystery to me. Well worth a read if ,like me you read the End of the Affair and wanted to find out more about the real story behind it. Very enjoyable
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Greene Addict
24 Oct 2000
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
I'm a Graham Greene addict and have just really enjoyed Gloria Emerson's "Loving Graham Greene". I liked the Neil Jordan film of The End of the Affair and read a rave review of this true account of the real life love affair between Greene and his American nymphomaniac mistress Catherine Walston in The London Spectator whilst visiting England earlier this year for an antique fair. I got a signed copy at Hatchards and read it on the plane on way back to New York and loved it. The book is a sort of literary detective investiagation into the importance of adultery to literature, played out against a background of Ireland, Paris, London, Rye, New York --- where i have family -- and Cambridge. Catherine Walston is one of the most intriging muses of modern literature, like Slyvia Plath only more erotic and dangerous. How Greene managed to still write his 500 words a day i have no idea. Anyhow, I'm giving this book as Christmas presents to several of my literary friends...Pity their are no pix in the book, other than on the cover.
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4.2 out of 5 stars
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