The Ghost (novel)

infobox Book |
name = The Ghost
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of the first US edition
author = Robert Harris
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Thriller novel
publisher = Hutchinson
pub_date = 26 September 2007
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback)(First edition) - Trade Paperback (Second edition)
pages = 384 pp (first edition, hardback)- 310pp (second edition, paperback)
isbn = ISBN 978-0091796266 (first edition, hardback)- ISBN 978-0-091-79625-9 (second edition, paperback)
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Ghost" is a contemporary political thriller by the best-selling English novelist and journalist Robert Harris.

In 2007 British prime minister Tony Blair resigned. Harris, a former Fleet Street political editor, dropped his other work to write the book. The ghost of the title refers both to a professional ghost-writer, whose lengthy memorandum forms the novel, and to his immediate predecessor who, as the action opens, has just drowned in gruesome and mysterious circumstances.

The dead man has been ghosting the autobiography of a recently unseated British prime minister. The latter is one Adam Lang, a thinly-disguised version of Blair. [ [http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,2180093,00.html Review in "The Guardian"] ] The fictional counterpart of Cherie Blair is depicted as a sinister manipulator of her husband. So astonishing are the implied allegations of the "roman à clef" that, had it concerned a lesser figure and were Harris a less eminent novelist, Britain's libel laws may have rendered publication impossible. Harris told The Guardian before publication: "The day this appears a writ might come through the door. But I would doubt it, knowing him." [http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/sep/27/books.generalfiction] The thriller acquires an added "frisson" from the fact that Harris was an early and enthusiastic backer of Blair and a donor to New Labour funds. [http://www.observer.com/2007/blair-snitch-project-thriller-pulps-britain-s-ex-prime-minister]

The New York Observer, headlining its otherwise hostile review "The Blair Snitch Project", commented that the book’s "shock-horror revelation" was "so shocking it simply can’t be true, though if it were it would certainly explain pretty much everything about the recent history of Great Britain." [http://www.observer.com/2007/blair-snitch-project-thriller-pulps-britain-s-ex-prime-minister]

Plot summary

The greater part of the action is on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, where Lang has been holed up in the holiday home of his billionaire American publisher, in order to turn out his memoirs to a deadline. Other scenes are set in Notting Hill, New York and Whitehall.

Lang's former press aide Mike McAra has been struggling to ghost his master's memoirs but, as the novel opens, McAra drowns when he apparently falls off the Woods Hole ferry. The fictional author of "The Ghost", whose name we never learn, is hired to replace him. (His girlfriend walks out on him over his willingness to take the job: "She felt personally betrayed by him; she used to be a party member.") He soon suspects foul play and stumbles across evidence of possible motive, buried in Lang's Oxbridge past. Having located what may be the lethal secret, the replacement ghostwriter begins to fear for his own safety.

Meanwhile Lang, like his real-life counterpart, has been accused by his enemies of war crimes. A leaked memorandum has revealed that he secretly approved the transfer of UK citizens to Guantanamo Bay to face interrogation and possible torture. One Richard Rycart, Lang's disillusioned and renegade former foreign secretary is loosely based on the late Robin Cook, who before and during his early days in office made much of his wish to adopt an "ethical" foreign policy. Now at the UN, Rycart is in a position to do his former boss serious damage. Unlike Blair, Lang thus appears in imminent threat of indictment at the International Criminal Court.

The protagonist at one point feverishly searches the Internet for information about "The Arcadia Institution", assigned a pivotal role in the plot, and which turns out to be a CIA front organization. The Google entry for the fictional Wikipedia page reads: "Arcadia Institution - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. The Arcadia Institution is an Anglo-American non-profit organization founded in 1991 under the presidency of Professor Paul Emmet... en.wikipeidia.org/wiki/Arcadia Institution - 35 - Cached - Similar pages." The narrator tussles to reconcile his obligation to complete the ghosting job with its attendant riches on the one hand and, on the other, the pressing need, as he sees it, to reveal Lang's true allegiances. The action really hots up when he contacts Rycart. The narrator comes under increasing jeopardy: romantically, politically, as well as physically.

"The Ghost" is dedicated to Gill, Harris's wife.

Lang & Blair

Harris said in a US National Public Radio interview that politicians like Lang and Blair, particularly when they've been in office a long time, become divorced from everyday reality, read little and end up with a pretty limited overall outlook. When it comes to writing their memoirs, they therefore tend to have all the more need of a ghostwriter.

Harris hinted at a third, far less obvious, allusion hidden in the novel's title, and, more significantly, at a possible motive for having written the book in the first place. Blair, he said, had himself been ghostwriter, in effect, to President Bush when giving public reasons for invading Iraq: he had argued the case better than had the President himself. [ National Public Radio interview, 31 October 2007.]

Film adaptation

In November 2007, Roman Polanski was attached to direct "The Ghost", production planned to begin in September 2008, [cite journal | first=Tatiana | last=Siegel | url=http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117975536.html?categoryid=13&cs=1 | title=Roman Polanski returns with 'Ghost' | journal=Variety | publisher=Reed Business Information | date=2007-11-07 | accessdate=2008-06-25 ] Polanski and Harris partnered to write the script. In June 2008, actors Pierce Brosnan, Nicolas Cage, and Tilda Swinton joined the cast. Brosnan will portray the ex-prime minister and Swinton his wife, while Cage will portray the ghostwriter. cite journal | first=Michael | last=Fleming | url=http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117988074.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2564 | title=Cage, Brosnan see Polanski's 'Ghost' | journal=Variety | publisher=Reed Business Information | date=2008-06-25 | accessdate=2008-06-26 ]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/10/06/bohar106.xml|"Daily Telegraph" review]
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