Ways of Escape
Published in 1980 as a follow-up to A Sort of Life, Ways of Escape covers Graham Greene's middle years and his career as a novelist, journalist, and traveler. He writes about reporting from Vietnam, Mexico, Cuba, and Africa, his work for British intelligence during the Second World War, and his troubled friendships with figures from Evelyn Waugh to Kim Philby. He also revisits the writing of novels including The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, and The Quiet American. The book takes its title from Greene's idea that writing was a way of escaping the boredom and panic of ordinary life, and it remains one of the clearest accounts of a literary career lived alongside the news.
What you might want to know about Ways of Escape
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Graham Greene's second volume of memoir follows his life as a working novelist through war zones, film sets, and the writing of his major books.
Bourdain named Ways of Escape in his NYT By the Book interview as a memoir he returned to throughout his life, citing Greene's restless travel and self-honesty as a model for his own writing.
No, but readers who know books like The Quiet American will get more out of the chapters where Greene describes how he wrote them.
Ways of Escape was written by Graham Greene, published in 1980 by Simon & Schuster.
Ways of Escape is 320 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Ways of Escape takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Ways of Escape is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.