Charles McCarry rides again

Overlook Press is finally righting a wrong: reissuing the early books by Charles McCarry, thought to be arguably the best American spy novelist still writing. Now the LA Weekly catches up with the 75-year-old writer to talk about THE TEARS OF AUTUMN, now out (again) in hardcover and featuring Paul Christopher as he attempts to solve the riddle of the Kennedy assassination:

Originally published in 1974, The Tears of Autumn has been out of print for more than a decade. Thanks to the Overlook Press, which is going to be slowly reissuing several other McCarry novels, it is available once more. (Penguin has purchased the paperback rights.) Economical in length, tersely poetic in style, it purports to solve the biggest political mystery of the 20th century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. In a just world, or at any rate a braver one, the liveliest film directors of the last few decades would have fought to bring it to the screen. That this hasn’t happened can perhaps be explained by the fact that its interpretation of the Kennedy assassination quietly stings American pride in a way even Oliver Stone wouldn’t countenance.

McCarry "only" spent ten years working for the CIA so he gets a bit annoyed that he's always asked about it, but there's good reason, of course -- all his books are about the organization. So why hasn't he achieved the kind of popularity afforded to John LeCarre?

Timing may have something to do with it. The post-Watergate era was not the ideal moment to bring a virtuous CIA agent before the serious reading public. Paul Christopher is the kind of American one doesn’t read about much anymore — intelligent, sensitive, multilingual, nonviolent, at home anywhere in the world, and a talented poet to boot. And though Autumn and the other books in the Christopher series are frequently skeptical about the value of intelligence work, sometimes devastatingly so, they don’t express any doubt about the value of the Cold War struggle itself, and the CIA is depicted in sympathetic terms. Unlike Le Carré, McCarry never fell for the idea that there might not be much difference, on a moral level, between the CIA and the KGB, let alone the societies they represented. Despite his self-deprecating remarks about the tedium of the work, McCarry is quietly proud of what he did for his country. He won’t talk about it except in generalities, but one senses that his contribution was significant.

After reading this (and other interviews) I know I have a ton of catching up to do...

Comments

[Olen Steinhauer]

Funny, I read your piece and then looked to the side of my desk to find 2 McCarry novels resting on the edge. The previous week a friend handed them to me and said, "You've gotta read these." I'm about halfway through "Secret Lovers", and the hype is spot-on. An American Le Carre, but extremely economical. Check it out.

[michael]

I have been a fan of McCarry for many years. One item worth tracking down which gives an insight into his mind and way of thinking is a strange story he wrote about a mountain climbing incident in Japan. Here is a link which
has the story. web.http://weblog.delacour.net/archives/2003/02/consequences.php

[BARTLETT]

Reading Mr.McCarry,is a great joy,compared to those pinko Brits who think the CIA and the KGB are two sides of the same coin.I must say I would like to correspond with him,as we are of an age and many similar experiences

[Justin]

I'm a 29 year old corporate american that is a hopeless romantic. I have recently read all of McCarry's novels and have most certainly determined that I was born in the wrong time and age in which a well rounded individual is confirmed by one's paycheck and title and not what one has learned and experienced. These novels have opened my eyes that there is way more out there than the materialistic American way. Thanks Mr. McCarry.

[brian lentz]

maybe there is yet a final christopher novel left. paul is in his eighties after all and knows where the bodies are buried.who better than he to ferret out the new head of the outfit as a traitor;maybe bring a few of the old boys back.

[Robert]

"Christopher's Ghosts" is both disappointing and irritating, for in it McCarry revises the story of Paul's youth in Germany and his 1939 escape from it. That so superior a novelist could commit such an mistake is bewildering.

[Star]

I thought he outdid himself with The Last Supper. Talk about back story! I am vision-compromised, so I listen and the reader on that one, Stephen Lang, is excellent.

[Paul Mobley]

Don't know why Charles McCarry gets so much good press. I've tried 2 of his books (Second Sight & The Secret Lovers) and I must say they are terrible.

Why???? Because they are SOOOOOO boring. They have enough
non essential, worthless filler, that you need two CIAs to ferret out the actual story lines! His books are about as exciting as reading nursery rhymes.

[Brian Lentz]

I suggest to Robert a new reading of Christopher's Ghosts. Is the revision so radical? Also, to Paul-to a certain point, you should read the novels in sequence;certain events link one novel to another