Le Carré’s son Nick, himself a good novelist, writes that his father never, never betrayed his Service. Nick himself knows nothing of what he did beyond the few things he said in interviews.
It deeply wounded him when he was accused of betrayal and was glad when serving officers privately sought him out to assure him they knew their secrets were kept. Of the new book, le Carré worked on it on and off for ten years. Nick calls it very good. Why did he hold it back?
Nick thinks it was because the new book shows a fragmented Service with political sympathies. A Service at war with itself. Nick assumes his father believed it was too close to the bone, finally telling the real truth.
Le Carré did conduct interrogations and the Grigoriev scene in “Smiley’s People” could only be drawn from experience. This is very good but the tension in the book is almost unbearable.
I would only add they specifically frame the new le Carré as his last “complete” book. He asked his son to finish anything that was unfinished, though Nick seems reluctant to do much more than an editor. So I do think they will publish more.
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