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In the world's forgotten margins, such as Tahiti and Bolivia, Graham Greene collected unshaven fugitives, lonely men and renegade priests: his archetypal protagonists. In his novels, these sympathies uncover painful paradoxes. Greene felt alive when surrounded by a culture and faith he couldn't fathom. Pico Iyer recognises this impulse.
Like Greene, he abhors the notion of stasis, both physically and mentally. The Man Within My Head – is it memoir or confession? – also brings up the notion of what it means to live a writer's life. "There's a splinter of ice," wrote Greene, "in the heart of a writer."
In prose that soars with magical associations, Iyer takes the reader on a mental, spiritual and literary journey as he travels to the locations of Greene’s novels. He also finds that it’s not just his mentor/virtual father who haunts him, but his own father.
This is a book to be reread for its depth, insights and startling journey into the undiscovered country of the self.
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