The Ghost (Harris novel)
First edition (UK)
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| Author | Robert Harris |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller novel |
| Publisher |
Hutchinson (UK) Simon & Schuster (US) |
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Publication date
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26 September 2007 |
| Media type | Print (hardback)(First edition) |
| Pages | 320 (1st UK) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 440621345 |
| LC Class | PR6058.A69147 G48 2007c |
The Ghost is a contemporary political thriller by the best-selling English novelist and journalist Robert Harris. The novel has been adapted into a film, directed by Roman Polanski, which was released in 2010. Polanski and Harris wrote the screenplay together.
In 2007 British prime minister Tony Blair resigned. Harris, a former Fleet Street political editor, dropped his other work to write the book. The ghost of the title refers both to a professional ghostwriter, whose lengthy memorandum forms the novel, and to his immediate predecessor who, as the action opens, has just drowned in mysterious circumstances.
The dead man had been ghosting the autobiography of a recently unseated British prime minister named Adam Lang, a thinly disguised version of Blair. The fictional counterpart of Cherie Blair is depicted as a sinister manipulator of her husband. So astonishing are the implied allegations of the roman à clef that, had it concerned a lesser figure and were Harris a less eminent novelist, Britain's libel laws might have rendered publication impossible: Harris told The Guardian before publication, "The day this appears a writ might come through the door. But I would doubt it, knowing him." The thriller acquires an added frisson from the fact that Harris was an early and enthusiastic backer of Blair and a donor to New Labour funds.
The New York Observer, headlining its otherwise hostile review The Blair Snitch Project, commented that the book's "shock-horror revelation" was "so shocking it simply can't be true, though if it were it would certainly explain pretty much everything about the recent history of Great Britain."
Most of the action takes place on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, where Lang has been holed up in the holiday home of his billionaire American publisher to turn out his memoirs on a deadline. Other scenes are set in Notting Hill, New York and Whitehall.
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Wikipedia