Gaelic Gloom

Letters

Vol. 22 No. 17 · 7 September 2000

From Patricia Craig

I am surprised to find Colm Tóibín (LRB, 10 August) describing as 'definitive' Denis Sampson's The Chameleon Novelist, a biography which was written without its subject's approval and which, indeed, made the last months of Brian Moore's life more agitated than they need have been. Before I explain why this was, I should quickly confess to having a whopping axe to grind: for the last three or four years I have been working on the authorised Moore biography, which I hope to complete shortly. If this means nothing else, it does mean that I am in possession of a good many facts about which The Chameleon Novelist is wildly astray; it was, indeed, the catalogue of errors, with their cumulative effect, which really got Brian Moore's goat and caused considerable chagrin to him and his relatives. It would be tedious to list these, but they start with ages and dates, continue with family history, go on with inaccurate assumptions about people's attitudes and states of mind and include wrong assertions about how things happened (for example, the meeting between Brian Moore and the young woman who became his second wife).

Patricia Craig
Antrim

Colm Tóibín writes: In his acknowledgments Denis Sampson says: 'I made a decision at the beginning that I would not ask for [Brian Moore's] co-operation beyond the permissions that were necessary for accessing and reproducing materials in the archives and in published form. That decision reflects my recognition of his discomfort with a biographical approach to his life and work, although – as is the case of many other writers – he did not seem to act in any way that indicated disapproval of what I was doing … Although he has not seen the text I have completed, he has generously granted me permission to quote from published and unpublished sources as indicated in the notes.'

The edition of the biography I used was the Canadian paperback published by Doubleday a year after the hardback. I presume that Moore's relatives thus had plenty of time to clear up any problems they may have had with the book. Since Patricia Craig does not list her problems, I cannot comment on them. My problem, I suppose, is that I don't believe that a biography has either to be authorised or to please its subject to be definitive.

Vol. 22 No. 18 · 21 September 2000

From Fred Kerner

Colm Tóibín (LRB, 10 August) perpetuates an error by claiming that Brian Moore used pseudonyms for all his early thrillers. Moore's first two novels appeared under his own name. They were published by a Canadian house – Harlequin – recommended by a Montreal colleague, Ronald Cooke. Both books were issued in 1951: Wreath for a Redhead in March and The Executioners in July. Half a dozen of Moore's next efforts were published under pseudonyms in the US – I acquired several while editor in chief of Fawcett World Library.

Fred Kerner
Toronto

Vol. 22 No. 20 · 19 October 2000

From Denis Sampson

William Golding's The Paper Men is a tense narrative of the relationship between a novelist and a biographer who stalks him up to the final sentence. That sentence, in the voice of the biographer, is incomplete: he has been shot by his subject. I did not stalk Brian Moore in the years during which I worked on my biography, The Chameleon Novelist, but now it seems that Patricia Craig, who is writing an 'authorised' biography, has attempted to shoot me (Letters, 7 September). Craig signed a contract to write Moore's biography in early summer 1996, when my work had been underway for some years. In fact, it was Brian Moore who phoned to let me know: he seemed happy that there were going to be two books about his work.

Second biographers usually claim their right to exist by making loud declarations that they will significantly correct the record, but Patricia Craig's insinuation that I was responsible for making 'the last months of Brian Moore's life more agitated than they need have been' is pitiable ammunition. I was not aware in early 1998 that I was requesting permissions from a seriously ill man, and it was only then that he acted in any way to indicate anxiety about what I might write.

I can guess that he was upset by the chapters which discuss his successful career as the author of seven thrillers, most written under pseudonyms; he made it clear that he did not want me to refer to them, nor did he want me to discuss unfinished novels. He refused permission to quote from manuscripts. I could understand why he would wish to be known as the novelist who began his career with Judith Hearne and wrote only literary novels, but I could not concur.

I know Moore was annoyed by the misspelling of a name, and his relatives have told me that I got a few family details wrong. I treated Moore's work, his career and his personal life with the greatest respect; in fact, some reviewers criticised my reticence.

Denis Sampson
Montreal