Inside man
Political journalist turned intelligent thriller writer, Robert Harris, indulges his latest gripping yarn set resolutely in the present day. He tells Nancy Alsop how The Ghost helped liberate him from the shackles of history
Above: Robert Harris
He’s the ambitious and charismatic everyman with a talent for showmanship, fallen from grace; she’s the clever strategist who’s foot rarely leaves her mouth. The likeness of the ex-prime minister and his wife, the two protagonists as painted by the raconteur ghost writer in Robert Harris’s new thriller, The Ghost, is, in places, uncanny. Harris meanwhile, declines to be dragged in to any game of parallel drawing. ‘It’s tricky. I wanted to do something with contemporary relevance, so to have put in a 70-year old prime minister wouldn’t have fitted,’ he explains. ‘But the whole point of fiction is to write what’s in your imagination. I do hope that they stand up as characters on their own.’
They do. While circumstantially (at least at the outset) the fictitious Langs bear resemblance to the marginally less fictitious Blairs (out of favour and in America), the deftly drawn characters have been endowed with lives beyond politics, which makes them infinitely more real than the Blairs and their trademark perma-grins. And since Harris goes back a long way with the ex-prime minister, he of all people can be trusted not to have constructed a pastiche of him; Harris, a former Panorama reporter and award-winning political editor of The Observer, was one of the first commentators to spot Blair’s potential, identifying him as the person most likely to carry Labour to victory back in 1992. With his premonition vindicated – he was present at Tony’s constituency as the results came rolling in. But, he insists, ‘I only know them a bit. I haven’t seen him for ages. It was very interesting back then though. He gave me very good access, I had police clearance. I was essentially one of his staff.’
In truth The Ghost has had a very long germination period – the basic elements of the story were in place before Blair even took up his role as PM, which roundly goes to show that the similarities are largely coincidental. ‘The origin of the book goes back a long way. To me the idea of the ghost writer was fascinating and I’d actually thought of it as a stage play, featuring a sleuth-like ghost. That was the initial set up – I do actually think that the book has something of the stage play about it.’
Indeed. The central stage is that of an out-of-season Martha’s Vineyard, where the hapless ghost (best known for producing memoirs of actors whose stars are fading and drug-addled rock legends) has inadvertently entered the fray and become immersed in the more consequential world of political dealings, while trying to compile Lang’s memoirs in the wake of the untimely and possibly suspicious death of his predecessor. A ghost haunted by a ghost, he is concurrently challenged by a subject in serious hot water – this PM may be ex, but in facing the consequences of his handling of terrorism and the detainment of suspected but unproved murderous radicals, his reluctant involvement is still profoundly current.
Although the book was Harris’ most speedy effort to date in the actual writing, even though the concept took root many years before. So why now?
‘I talked to my American publicist last September when I was in New York for the launch of my last book. He said it would never be more timely – and he was right.’
That was September. By January this year Harris was writing (alongside penning the screenplay of another of his bestsellers, Pompeii, which will be directed by Roman Polanski), having spent a week at Martha’s Vineyard and it just flowed.
For someone used to writing historical fiction (other works include Enigma, Fatherland, Imperium and Pompeii – set respectively in the Second World War and the ancient world), the present was liberating. ‘It was great. I’d spent so long writing books about Romans that it was terrific to work on something where characters use mobile phones and the internet. I felt like a martian who’d come back to Earth. And of course it was more fluid, more personal. It was a relief not to have to go into the same minutiae of research. Still, I have never worked harder.’
And that is saying something. By any standards Harris has worked hard from an early age, becoming The Observer’s political editor at 30. He sees his stint in journalism as ‘fantastic training’ for what was inevitably to come. From the age of eight, he had set his sights on becoming a writer of novels, though endearingly, he recalls how little he expected Fatherland, his first book, to achieve the success that it did.
‘I was commissioned by Tim Sebastian who was commissioning journalists at the time. I had this idea and sort of got stuck with it. I sent the first third of it to my American agent – it was then that I got the first intimation that it might be a success.’ The manuscript went to auction, with eight publishing houses locked in a bidding war.
‘At that point everything changed,’ says Harris, who remains modest in spite of his vast success. ‘The second novel really sorts you out. You can be fortunate enough to hit the jackpot with the first but can you do another?’ It turns out he could – The Ghost is his eighth work.
‘The first wasn’t even finished when I sent it over. I just got a call from my agent saying that I would be paid $500,000 for it’. And did he know at that point how the last two-thirds were going to turn out? ‘No!’ is the answer. Charmingly, one of success’s chief perks for Harris has been that, unlike other fathers, his writing schedule (6am–12.30 pm) has allowed him to be present to bring up his four children.
But Harris is not one to sit back and bask in the success of all his bestsellers. There are two more ancient Rome books to come (Imperium was the first of a trilogy), though he is glad to have had the chance to prove that he’s not ‘an ancient Rome nut’ with The Ghost. Then there’s the silver screen rendition of Pompeii, upon which his stance is characteristically humble. ‘With films it’s nice because you can take some of the credit but not all of the blame – and you can enjoy all the razzmatazz. With novels, you are screamingly exposed.’
With his background and fluency in political commentary, which is nowhere more evident than on the pages of The Ghost, was he ever tempted to enter the political arena himself?
‘In the end I am a writer – writing and politics are not compatible. Writing is much safer – for politicians, unless you’ve reached the very top, it’s easy to become bitter and frustrated. With books, there is just a very simple contract between writer and reader.’
But despite his satisfaction to be an observer, he has nonetheless always understood the appeal. ‘Politics played at its highest level is a drug and it’s utterly enthralling. One of the characters in the book says that it’s not having power that’s exhausting, it’s not having power. Once that adrenaline level is up, it’s very hard to come down – only a small fraternity of people have made it to the top, like top sportspeople.’
At the other end of the spectrum is the ghost, whose name we never know and who submerges himself in the minds of others. But, in the manner of ghosts, he tells a clever and compelling story, his anonymity heightening the tense narrative. Though he is clear that he would not be a ghost writer himself, you somehow feel that Harris, given the choice between the life of a high-profile politician or of an anonymous writer would always opt for the latter, because, as he says, ‘There’s almost nothing to be said against the writing life.’
The Ghost is released on 4 October published by Hutchinson, £18.99