The Collected Novels Volume Two Book Reviews

The Collected Novels Volume Two by Graham Greene Book Summary

From “the most ingenious, inventive, and exciting of our novelists”: Three brilliant novels exploring colonialism, faith, and the mysteries of desire (V. S. Pritchett).
 
This collection features three classic novels that explore Graham Greene’s most important themes: Catholicism, international intrigue, and the never-ending struggle to know oneself. From West Africa to Vietnam to Mexico, these stories prove that “no serious writer of [the twentieth] century has more thoroughly invaded and shaped the public imagination than Graham Greene” (Time).
 
The Heart of the Matter: In a British colony of West Africa, Henry Scobie is a pious man of modest means charged with securing borders. But when he’s passed over for a promotion, the humiliation hits hard—for his wife. To make it up to her, Henry accepts a loan from a black marketeer to secure Louise’s passage out of Africa. His single indiscretion quickly leads him—one moral compromise after another—into a web of blackmail, adultery, and murder.
 
“A powerful, deep-striking novel . . . of a spirit lost in the darkness of the flesh.” —New York Herald Tribune
 
The Quiet American: Vietnam, 1955. British journalist Thomas Fowler is covering the insurgency against French colonial rule and doing what he can to protect his Vietnamese lover, Phuong. Alden Pyle of the CIA believes in bringing American democracy to Vietnam by any means necessary. But when his ideas of conquest come to include Phuong, pride, passion, and blind moral conviction collide with terrible consequences.
 
“A heartrending romance . . . Haunting and profound.” —All Things Considered, NPR
 
The Power and the Glory: In 1930s Tabasco, Mexico, Catholicism is being outlawed. As churches are razed and devotees are executed, a member of the clergy known only as the “whisky priest” flees. He now travels as one of the hunted—attending, in secret, to the spiritual needs of the faithful. When a peasant begs him to return to Tabasco to hear the confessions of a dying man, the whisky priest knows it’s a trap. But it’s also his duty—and possibly his salvation.
 
“A thriller—but also a novel of ideas . . . A book I would have simply died to write.” —Scott Turow, New York Times–bestselling author
 
 

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