The Secret Life of John le Carre

Working in contemporary geopolitics you are always struck by the power of imagination and fictional narratives in determining the reputations of secretive organisations. John le Carré, whose real name was David Cornwell, died in 2020 at the age of 89 having written more than 20 spy novels that brought him both fame and fortune. Cornwell was an important author for a host of reasons having creating characters that helped to define the public’s perception of aspects of Cold War history as well as the world of spying and spy craft. He was a former spy himself and agreed to have his biography written by Adam Sisman before he died.

However, as Sisman explains in this new book the original biography was never fully authorized but rather “supported” by Cornwell who would go on to exercise strict limits as to areas of his life that Sisman couldn’t comment on while he was still alive. Indeed, this “Secret Life” edition focuses largely on Cornwell’s clandestine affairs that he conducted for most of his adult life in what one of his own children describe as a “secret annex.” Cornwell even hinted at killing himself if Sisman revealed too much in his original book, but it’s fair to say that this edition is best understood having read the first wider look at Cornwell’s life.

Sisman is a sympathetic biographer who prefers not to peep through the keyhole of subjects into their private lives but rather “linger in the corridor, clearing my throat to indicate presence.” He is an unabashed admirer of Cornwell’s work describing him as a “writer of high class” but one who was guilty of “reprehensible” behavior. Sisman was allowed access directly to Cornwell as well as his archives and interviews with his “friends and enemies.” This material which was omitted from the original biography, points to how Cornwell gathered energy and ideas for his books by living a spy-like “double life” through multiple affairs.

Cornwell, who was “always restlessly seeking love,” understood that “spying is lying” and Sisman explains his philandering as “playing being a spy.” There seems a clear blurring between his fictional spy stories and how he lived his own life. Chapters with titles like “acting like a git” demonstrated the lengths he would go to in order to keep affairs secretive. Dropbox addresses, glamorous gifts of jewellery, impromptu trips to luxury hotels in exotic countries all charged with the impossibility of Cornwell ever leaving his second wife. He even fell in love with a pen pal whom he’d only meet once.

Reading the book without its larger biographic predecessor means that Cornwell’s complex relationship with his parents (he was abandoned by his mother at an early age and describes his father as a “monster”) is only touched upon. Likewise, his wife Jane is underused as a source, for perhaps sensitivity’s sake, once telling Sisman the guarded explanation that “nobody can have all of David.” Yet as a reader you feel the same thing, a combination of the author’s own secrets and lies, his fictional retelling of his own life, and the inherent limits of a biography over an autobiography mean that you’re still left asking questions as to who John le Carré really was. Perhaps nobody will ever know, and Cornwell will remain more myth than man. He may have wanted it that way.