The Predicament - William Boyd (2025)

 

Rating: Admirable

William Boyd is another writer with a connection to David Bowie, having co-engineered an infamous art hoax when they were both on the board of Modern Painters journal. Boyd wrote and Bowie published a book, Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960 (1998) about a lost American artist called Nat Tate. Launched on April Fools day, both Bowie and Gore Vidal read excerpts and fooled the world, for a while at least. Boyd's current literary excursion is the second part of a trilogy (the first being Gabriel's Moon, published in 2024), featuring travel writer and reluctant spy, Gabriel Dax. Set in 1963 Dax is again called into action by his MI6 handler, the seductive Faith Green, whom Gabriel is romantically drawn to, despite his best, but ultimately pathetic efforts. Dax is a quintessential charming Englishman, who's general befuddlement regarding his circumstances remains despite being drawn ever further into the world of cold war espionage. He's posing as a double agent to reel in (attractive) KGB female agents and then he's sent to Guatemala to gain intel on a popular left-wing leader. Of course it all goes pear-shaped, but at least he makes some progress on his travel book about famous rivers. Later, in West Berlin, he's liaising with another (attractive) agent, and, of course, Faith Green, to head off a potential assassination attempt on John F Kennedy during his famous visit to West Berlin. This part of the book is convincingly rendered, with period flourishes bringing some authenticity to proceedings. 

Bowie and Boyd, April Fools tricksters

Boyd is a self professed fan of Graham Greene and despite mentioning in an interview that he believes that he is not channelling the author, I couldn't help but think of Greene when reading The Predicament. Greene split his works into more serious literary fiction and what he called his 'entertainments', light and humorous excursions aimed at the everyday reader. The Predicament definitely has a light tone and although Boyd's writing is sophisticated and erudite, it is an easy read, with the narrative moving along with an engaging pace, and yes, it is entertaining. Dax is a relatable character, convincingly out of his depth, yet plucky in his resolve to rise to the various challenges in his path. He has a tendency for self reflection and therefore does moan a bit, but fortunately he does see a therapist, an (attractive) Dr Haas, which provides some insight into his character and also some humour. The main problem, for me anyway, was that there was little tension generated throughout, even when Dax's life was in danger. There's some spy thriller action tropes that play out that are very well written, but the overall light tone means that there doesn't seem to be that much at stake. Still, the plot is good enough and there are some great satirical scenes that are also homages to the spy genre; Dax is schooled in tailing suspects by an amiable agent, who takes Dax on a merry chase, whilst also pausing to eat at every available opportunity. Dax is also given a lesson in self defence by an old hand, which comes across as a playful James Bond moment, without any gadgets, just good old fashioned practical advice. This was a book club read and about half of the members were impressed and rated The Predicament highly, whilst some others were less impressed, citing Dax's tendency for having a good old moan and the lack of palpable tension. Still, a fine novel that serves a particular purpose - to engage and entertain, and there's nothing wrong with that. 

Trio - William Boyd (2020)

 

Rating: Admirable

I do believe that William Boyd has written Trio as an antidote to our pandemic blighted times, after all, who needs more darkness and intensity from their literature when it's already happening in society. Trio is a perfect 'light read', with some potentially heavy themes rendered with a, shall we say, light touch. The novel, set in 1968, involves three characters who are all involved with the making of a film set in Brighton - Elfrida Wing, Talbot Kidd and Anna Viklund. Anna is acting in the film that Talbot is producing and Elfrida is a lapsed novelist married to the director, a man called Reggie who, comically, insists on being called Rodrigo. Although the main three protagonists are given quite a bit of page time it is Talbot who tends to dominate; an old school closet case who fought in WWII and stands as a man out of time, surrounded by bright new things such as the gorgeous Anna and her young co-star Troy Blaze. Talbot juggles a multitude of problems that keep getting worse, whilst Anna finds that her extremely dodgy terrorist ex-husband keeps turning up and the police are involved. Elfrida is perhaps the least sympathetic, to me at least, as she irritated me somewhat, with her alcoholism and attempts at writing a novel about the last day of Virgina Wolf, although this actually led to some quite funny moments as she keeps trying to rewrite the opening paragraph (finally resorting to imagining Wolf farting as she wakes up).

Boyd juggles the three characters well and the minor characters are all quite well rendered. The dominant theme is that of identity - the dichotomy between one's inner world and the self that fronts the world at large. The darker themes, such as alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, the danger of being an outed gay man (even after the laws against it had changed) and organised crime do not overly dominate the novel. Often when it looks like one of these themes will lead a character into darker territory Boyd shows restraint and the novel goes back to being an interesting and entertaining narrative about the complexities of making a film. Only Anna slips into the darkness, but even that is handled in a manner in which the reader is shielded from the worst. Trio comes across as literary fiction having a holiday (in Brighton?) by masquerading as popular fiction, which ultimately is absolutely fine. Boyd also chooses not to involve the novel too much in the tumultuous world events of the times, like the Vietnam war, the assassination of Martin Luther King and another Kennedy assassination (Robert). The Paris riots and revolutionary fervour features indirectly as a means for Talbot to begin a running joke that he had been punched in the face by a French philosopher, you'll understand if you read the novel. You could do much worse than Trio, which would be a fine summer read or a good book club read - my book clubs mostly enjoyed it and the discussions were entertaining enough, and sometimes that's enough.

Restless - William Boyd (2006)

Rating: Admirable

Restless stands as a rarity for me due to the fact that I rarely, if ever, read espionage novels, and it is also my first William Boyd novel. My prior knowledge of Boyd stems from my Bowie fandom, when Bowie was one of the few in on the elaborate joke played by Boyd with the creation of a fictional artist called Nat Tate back in 1998. Having now read Restless I can say that Boyd is a talented writer and having read a number of interviews with him in preparation for the book club sessions he's also an interesting and intelligent gentleman. I did enjoy the novel, with its tale of a daughter finding out that her mother was in fact a spy working for the British government during the first few years of WWII. The premise is based on a historically real attempt to try and use spin and false evidence to convince the citizens of the USA to join the war against the Nazis. It is, as they say, a cracking read; however in hindsight I feel it was somewhat diminished by the alternating chapters set in the mid 1970's (the others being set during WWII), in which an end game of sorts is enacted by the mother whilst the daughter struggles with her own life as a single mother attempting to finish a thesis and having to fend off the amorous overtures of an Iranian student. I guess you could refer to this book as a literary spy novel - some good holiday reading perhaps...?