Brian Moore : A Biography

'The only wise prediction to make about a new Brian Moore novel is that it will be unpredictable and wise,' wrote Christopher Ricks reviewing BLACK ROBE, one of the 20 magnificent novels which put Brian Moore into the first rank of world writers. Northern Ireland may have shaped him, as he grew up one of nine children in a Catholic doctor's Belfast household, but World War II took him to Africa and war-ravaged Europe, and Canada freed him to become a writer. London took the chance in 1955 and published THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE, the first of many novels which lead steadily to international critical acclaim. The United States became his home, though he was no more likely to be pigeon-holed by a single country than to write the same novel under a different guise. He was a writer's writer, baffling contemporaries with how he pulled off his literary feats and yet also a highly accessible novelist everyone could read - one who could wield a marvellous plot, create characters - male, and perhaps especially female - who would burst into life and who could kindle atmospheres of haunting tension, historical vividness or metaphysical mystery. Patricia Craig, who began this fascinating authorised biography with the help and blessing of Brian Moore himself, and his wife Jean, impeccably pieces together the colourful and peripatetic life that lay behind the novels. She also reveals the droll, romantic, cant-hating, affable and brilliant man who so disarmingly enhanced 20th century letters.