The Secret Life of John le Carre

September 11, 2023
National Book Critics Circle Award winner Sisman delivers a revealing “supplement” to his 2015 authorized biography of John le Carré (1931–2020), divulging how the espionage writer’s extramarital affairs influenced his novels. Reporting that le Carré asked that mention of his infidelity be withheld until after his death, Sisman explains he can now disclose what he learned from private correspondence and interviews with some of the many women le Carré seduced while he was married. Le Carré believed pursuing women stimulated his creativity, Sisman contends, and he describes how the writer’s furtive conduct sometimes rivaled the spycraft in his novels, with “codes, false names, dead letter boxes, and safe houses” for liaising with women. Among the paramours discussed are American journalist Janet Lee Stevens, who likely served as the inspiration for the eponymous hero of The Little Drummer Girl, and Sue Dawson, who claims that some of her conversations with le Carré made their way into A Perfect Spy, albeit between the protagonist and “his wife, not his mistress.” Sisman uncovers a previously hidden and discomfiting dimension of le Carré, and remains remarkably unflinching when addressing the implications: “Does it lower him in our estimation to know that he lied to his wife? Yes, of course it does.” Future accounts of le Carré’s life will have to wrestle with the bombshells dropped here.