Old Pleasures Rediscovered.

The Ghost, by Robert Harris

In interviews given to the press Robert Harris has had to answer many questions about his new book. To all that have read it, it seems closely modeled on Tony and Cherie Blair and their political reign in the UK. Harris has stated that he started out as an enthusiastic supporter of New Labour in the UK, but grew increasingly disillusioned as, like the rest of the world, all stood aghast at the direction the country took and the fashion in which it made itself into the lapdog of the USA. To many it seemed betrayal of earlier promise, and quite inexplicable. In this book Harris has crafted an explanation, and it will intrigue you. It is a wonderfully well-written political thriller, with more than a dash of conspiracy theory, and a marvelous twist, just after you think you’ve unraveled the plot all by yourself and are feeling smug, that will make you reconsider all you know of the history, even if for only a moment.

The book’s protagonist is a ghostwriter, one who immerses himself in the lives of other, well-known people, in order to write their autobiographies. In doing this he blurs the lines between his memories and theirs, and makes order and sense of their lives in such a way that lives that could have seemed dull become interesting and meaningful. As a chameleon of sorts, he slips easily into the skins of his subjects and, in a sense, becomes them for the time it takes to write the book.

His services are called upon to complete the memoirs of the past British Prime Minister, after the original ghostwriter is found drowned in Martha’s Vineyard. In the process he unravels a plot so dastardly that it would have made Machiavelli skip with glee. Though not beyond the call of far-fetched, you find yourself nodding thoughtfully and thinking – ‘could be, could be’. The character of Cherie/Ruth comes in for more than a bit of stick, as does British and American politics and the wars in the Middle East.

Before becoming a full-time writer Robert Harris worked for the BBC and was the political editor of The Observer. He is the author of several works of non-fiction, including A Higher Form of Killing: Secret Story of Gas and Germ Warfare and Selling Hitler: Story of the Hitler Diaries, but it is as a novelist that he really shines. His first novel, Fatherland, an alternative history in which the Germans emerged victorious from the Second World War, was a best seller and successfully filmed, as was his second, Enigma, about the breaking of the Enigma code at Bletchley Park in the Forties. The huge success of these two made it possible for him to be able to devote himself to full-time writing.

He is married to the writer Gill Hornby, who is the sister of best-selling author Nick Hornby.

There’s a lot of fine writing in that family.