Our Man in Havana

By Graham Greene and Clive Francis

Jim Wormold, an under-employed vacuum cleaner salesman living in 1950s Cuba, is struggling to pay for his teenage daughter’s increasingly extravagant lifestyle. So when the British Secret Service asks him to become their ‘man in Havana’ he can’t afford to say no. There’s just one problem…he doesn’t know anything! To avoid suspicion, he begins to recruit nonexistent sub-agents, concocting a series of intricate fictions. But Wormold soon discovers that his stories are closer to the truth than he could have ever imagined…

In Clive Francis’ adaptation, Graham Greene’s classic satirical novel becomes a wonderfully funny and fast-moving romp.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Release date: Aug 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781783192670

Graham Greene

Graham Greene (1904–1991) is recognized as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, achieving both literary acclaim and popular success. His best known works include Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, The Quiet American, and The Power and the Glory. After leaving Oxford, Greene first pursued a career in journalism before dedicating himself full-time to writing with his first big success, Stamboul Train. He became involved in screenwriting and wrote adaptations for the cinema as well as original screenplays, the most successful being The Third Man. Religious, moral, and political themes are at the root of much of his work, and throughout his life he traveled to some of the wildest and most volatile parts of the world, which provided settings for his fiction. Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour.  

Reviews for Our Man in Havana

[richardderus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Graceless, gormless Wormold, a British sales agent for an American vacuum cleaner company in barely pre-Revolution Havana, has a problem. His adolescent daughter Milly, a manipulative and materialistic minx, spends well beyond his paltry earnings in her quest to ensnare the Red Vulture. That's a person, not a bird, one Captain Segura, who is the police torturer and possessor of a cigarette case covered in human skin. (An assertion Milly makes but Segura denies.) Wormold is fighting a losing battle, trying to sell a home appliance that's less useful than a broom in a country that's teetering on the brink of collapse. The power goes off too often to make it a sensible purchase, despite Wormold's trips to Cienfuegos (the Cuban Navy's main port) and points east (where the Revolutionary Army is strongest) to drum up business. What he *does* drum up is the interest of the state security apparatus. You see, Wormold is a British spy.Good heavens, not a real one! He was worrying his way through a daily daiquiri with his German friend Dr. Hasselbacher when a Brit called Hawthorne inveigles him into the bathroom. That sounds, well, louche is I suppose the least offensive term, but it's what happens so have a séance and take it up with Greene if it's too sordid for you. What Hawthorne wants, I suppose, is a reason to visit Havana from his base in more-staid Kingston, Jamaica. (In 1958, when the book takes place, Havana was the Las Vegas of the Caribbean.) It also doesn't hurt his standing with MI6 to have a sub-agent in uneasy, revolution-bound Cuba. Wormold gets the nod, though to be honest I don't see a single reason why...oh wait...Milly the Minx is spending Daddy into bankruptcy (her initial salvo when we meet her is to demand a horse to go with the saddle she's just bought) so of course Wormold is in need of funds. Money always talks to men with debts. From that match-to-fuse moment, a farce of atomic power begins to whirl from one end of the world to the other. Some sage adivce given to Wormold by WWI veteran Hasselbacher, to make his reports to London out of whole cloth on the principle that no one can disprove a lie, leads to Wormold's entire life being turned upside down. As he hurries from fire to fire atop an ever-increasing reactor fire of anxiety-into-terror, Wormold's lies begin to morph into the truth. Hawthorne's sub-agent becomes London's Agent of the Month, so to speak, as the wildly inventive reports he files bear fruit. As the book was written long before the events of the Missile Crisis, it really seems as though Greene was prescient: He has Wormold invent secret bases where mysterious equipment (drawings attached to his report were actually of a scaled-up vacuum cleaner) was being assembled. MI6 wants photos, of course; Raul the pilot (an invented sub-agent of Wormold's) suddenly dies in a crash. This is evidence that Wormold is onto something, obviously.More and more of Wormold's fabulous reports are borne out as his "contacts" begin to suffer for his lies. Wormold himself comes in for assassination by the Other Side! He averts his fate, being a devout coward, and then has to do the worst-imaginable thing to escape his fate. (Read it, you'll see.) In the end, Greene can't design a better fate for Wormold and Milly than the one he puts on the page. It's perfect, it flows naturally from what's happened in the story, and it's hilarious. The humor of this book, like most of Greene's work, is dark to black. Be warned that there is little of this sixty-year-old send-up of National Security run amok that isn't viewable as critical of the State from 2019's perspective as well. Is that sad or inevitable, or perhaps both?My favorite moment in the story comes when Wormold, busily inventing actions for his fictitious sub-agents to get up to, muses on the creative process:Sometimes he was scared at the way these people grew in the dark without his knowledge.Beautifully said, Author Greene. Just beautiful. And so very true.

[addunn3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Greene takes our unlikely spy on a mission in pre-Castro cuba

[mikelogan1971 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book. Graham Greene is one of my favourite authors. His prose flows very well, his dialogue is witty, his characters are lively. This spy spoof in Cuba brings a lighthearted poke at the genre.

[danielstj · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A fine book.

[hagelstein_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A divorced father with a demanding and manipulative teenage daughter and an iffy vacuum cleaner business in Havana, Wormold takes to spying for British Intelligence. He’s mainly in it for the money though, and quickly learns to manipulate the system, filing expense reports for fabricated agents and sources, which necessitates fabricating intelligence. He’s so successful that he’s sent a secretary and radio operator, the quicker to get the reports out. He soon makes enemies while some of his fake intel appears to be coming true.Graham Greene manages to humanize and squeeze humor out of the dark side of Wormold’s spying business, despite some actual danger. Nobody turns out quite as bad as first seems, except some you wouldn’t expect.

[caanderson-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved it! Great short mystery story with comedy and interesting characters.

[carmenere_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When an unassuming British vacuum salesman, living in Havana, is offered a side job with England's secret service he must acquiesce. Mr. Wormold has no desire to become a spy but his teenage daughter has drained his bank account and with spotty power lines the vacuum business is not a bustling one. He goes about being a spy in a most unconventional manner and it has dire consequences.I found this book very entertaining and quite humorous. A fun read which is much more than I expected. Greene captures the hot and steamy Caribbean atmosphere, pre-revolution, and populates it with well defined characters. Aside from the laughable moments, Greene is also uncannily prophetic for when it comes to fake news and a potential missile crisis, he's already got it covered. I highly recommend this quick read.

[melissalenhardt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm very disappointed this book isn't on my 1001 Books list. But, it was so good - funny and prescient - that I can forgive it. I bought it because of the Penguin Classics cover (not the one shown here) which turned out to be a good reason! It's a short read, as many mid/early 20th century novels are. Highly recommended.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Humoristisch spionageverhaal, met een typische Greene-ondertoon. Vooral stilering Wormold, als man die tegen zijn zin en kunde in een onmogelijke situatie komt en daar nog uit weggeraakt. Typisch Greene-thema van de verantwoordelijkheid (en het geweten).

[theampersand · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Graham Greene seemed to enjoy setting traps for his characters. I don't suppose that that's too uncommon among thriller writers, but Greene was also a good enough writer to make his characters into real, likable people rather than mere plot-driven puppets. "Our Man in Havana" is, by any measure, a good book, but I found watching poor Jim Wormold get painted into a corner by his own opportunistic untruths to be a distinctly uncomfortable experience. Still, there are other reasons to read this one. Greene seems to be using the flashy, fast-talking Hawthorne to poke fun at the cloak-and-dagger genre, and his portrayal of young MIlly Wormold's Catholicism is wonderfully open to interpretation. The novel's real attraction might be its setting, Cuba on the edge of Castro's revolution. It's hard not to read about Cuba without getting a hint of somebody's nostalgia, but the Havana that Greene describes here seems impossibly far away, separated, as it is, from the contemporary reader by both time and politics. Greene's describes it here as an infinitely corrupt place whose amusements are dimmed by the main character's sadness and attachment to his own past. "Our Man in Havana" has an ending right out of a movie, but it's still recommended to readers who like sad tales from sunny places.

[maxernst11 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Humoristisch spionageverhaal, met een typische Greene-ondertoon. Vooral stilering Wormold, als man die tegen zijn zin en kunde in een onmogelijke situatie komt en daar nog uit weggeraakt. Typisch Greene-thema van de verantwoordelijkheid (en het geweten).

[marse_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An enjoyable, though dated (early 50s), story of a British vacumn cleaner salesman in Havana, who is enlisted by British Intelligence to report on the goings-on of various people he may be in contact with. Needing money to keep his 17 y.o. daughter in style, he takes the money and makes up various "contacts" who report to him -- also making up the information. Things start getting out of hand when some of his "reports" get the attention of the "others" whoever they may be and people start dying or almost dying. Not exactly a laugh a minute, but interesting in sort of spy versus spy, slightly sarcastic way.

[ffortsa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel, which Greene calls one of his 'entertainments', was chosen for one of my f2f book groups, and then one of us ended up in the hospital and asked me to read it to him. I think slowing down to read a book aloud is of great benefit, although I doubt my amateur attempt was as easy to understand as a professional's would have been.Greene sets this deceptively light comedy, by turns funny and frightening, in Havana just before the last revolution. Rebels are in the hills; spies of all countries want to know everything about them, and each other. Jim Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman, is recruited in the most casual way by British Secret Service; he is bewildered by the job but enticed by the money, having a daughter with expensive tastes and great manipulative skills. Pressed to report, he decides to become creative, with increasingly woeful results. People who don't even know they are involved in Wormold's fantasy tradecraft find themselves in harm's way; the not-so-secret Cuban police are everywhere, and finally our man in Havana has to become wise in a hurry to save his own skin.But I wouldn't call this a caper. Some of the musings are too serious for that. Underneath the 'entertainment', Greene is pondering the big questions of faith, purpose, meaning, and loyalty, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes with a snarl.

[niecierpek · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A highly entertaining spy, but no spy, story that takes place in Cuba at the end of the fifties, right before Castro's revolution. I didn't know Greene's playful side, everything I read before was very heavy, and whereas this is not devoid of good and biting insights, it's much more entertaining than anything I've read before. An excellent preface by Christopher Hitchens was worth reading on its own.

[etimme_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very funny and well written book. The easy wit of Greene's Wormold reminded me a lot of Christopher Moore's protagonist from "Dirty Job" - or perhaps I should say that Moore reminds me of Greene. In any case, I enjoyed both the humor of Greene's dialogue and the absurdity of the plot while not missing the attention spent on the vibrancy of the Cuban backdrop.

[sean191 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Take James Bond and mix him with Inspector Clouseau (shaken, not stirred) and you'll have a pretty close estimation of protagonist Jim Wormold. In fact, you'll have a close approximation of the story's feel as well. It takes the danger, some violence and the wit of James Bond and mixes in some lighter almost slapstick humor a la Inspector Clouseau. This was the first book I've read by Greene and if this is any indication of how enjoyable the rest of his work is, it won't be the last.

[cdeuker · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Marvelous fiction. An Englishman, selling vacuum cleaners in Havana, becomes a "spy" in order to make a little extra cash for his high-rent daughter's upkeep. He invents sub-agents, but those spying on the spy don't realize this. The sub-agents come to life . . . and death . . . and the breezy comedy turns serious. Marred by an epilogue that is preachy in a way the book is not.

[prop2gether · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This story of a vacuum salesman in Havana who is recruited (he's not sure how) into the British Secret Service was great fun. How Wormold deals with an agency that will pay him for nonsense, governments (Britain, pre-Castro Cuba) that deal with him seriously as a spy, and all that happens about him--it just worked for me.

[grheault_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very funny, cold war story, about a vaccum cleaner repairman who needs money and spies who need something to spy upon. Well written, fast moving, great characters, happy ending. Companion to Catch 22.

[charbutton · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An enjoyable re-read. Wormold, a British ex-pat living in Havana, runs a branch of a vacuum cleaner supplier, has drinks every day with his only friend Dr Hasselbacher and worries that he doesn't have the money to give his attractive young daughter the future she deserves. One day a British gentleman appears in Havana and offers Wormold the chance to become a spy for Her Majesty's Government. What follows is farcical, absurd and very funny as Wormold becomes embroiled in what turns out to be a very dangerous situation.The close connections between the British Secret Service and writers of fiction in real life (Ian Fleming for example) sharpen the satire and make me think that Wormold's experiences might not be that far away from the reality of the spying network in the mid-20th century!Wormold himself is an interesting character, a passive man who just seems to take everything that's thrown at him and ends up in a much better position than before. But there's also a lot of unknowns about him. How did he end up in Cuba? What happened between him and his wife to make her run off?

[kbergfeld_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It took a while to get going, but once the plot started to play out, I had problems putting it down. I think it is a matter of getting past the British humor style of writing, as well as the set-up. Delightful fun in the summer on the roof with a hard cider.

[nrclibn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dryly humorous, and a wonderfully evocative outsider's view of pre-revolutionary Cuba.

[johnnebauer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Heavy on the whimsy, but I applaud the overall wordview that fails to take seriously the pretensions of the great powers

[cameling_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not your typical spy thriller but it surely is very entertaining. A British vacuum cleaner salesman is recruited by MI6 to be their agent in Cuba. He's no James Bond but accepts the position so he can buy a horse and country club membership for his precocious teenage daughter. Not having any interest in being a secret agent, he makes up fictitious agents and reports which are sent to London. Before long he becomes boldly creative with his reports so much so that London thinks Cuba is on the cusps of a revolutionary war. They send additional staff to aid their star agent and thereafter things start to spin out of control. When some people are killed, he realizes this is no longer a game ans tries to come clean .....but someone wants to kill him. Oh and the Chief of Police in Havana, a man known to carry a coin purse made out the skin of a man he tortured, wants to marry his daughter.One of the best satirical comedies I've read in a long time. Bravo!

[miketroll · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hugely funny, Greene at his best in this story set in pre-Castro Cuba of a vacuum cleaner salesman who becomes a spy.

[terrapinjetta_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely hilarious! Few books make me laugh out loud, but this is one of them, and oh my what a story there is too. Hurrah for Graham Greene!

[dylanwolf · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'll admit to having great problems with Graham Greene's style. It seems to me very dry and dead. The story here is a comic one and very enchanting. A naive, unsuspecting vacuum cleaner salesman is gently persuaded to supplement his meagre income by taking on the job of being an MI6 agent in Havana. Feeling guilty because he has no idea what he is being paid for he starts to fabricate reports back to head office. His hedonistic daughter has pretensions of a rich lifestyle and soon his position as an agent is compromised. I know this is meant to be funny but the writing just doesn't inspire me to anything. Does anyone know of a Graham Greene helpline where I could get advice?

[olivermagnus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

James Wormold is a vacuum cleaner salesman in 1950s Cuba. Wormold is unable to say no to his daughter, Milly, and her extravagances are driving him to bankruptcy. When an MI6 agent named Hawthorne approaches Wormold with an offer of spy work, he accepts and is given the code name 59200/5. Unfortunately, he has no useful information. Desperate for the money, he makes up intelligence based on newspaper reports, which the British fall for. Seeing an opportunity, Wormold takes names from a list of country club members and invents an imaginary network of sources, all of whom need paying.

Wormold begins to send fake reports, mainly about a weapons-system "currently being developed" by the Cubans. London is shocked and surprised. Before long, things get out of control. Covert sub-agents, both those whose names were just taken from the Country Club directory, as well as those living only in Wormold's imagination, begin to die and suffer attacks. Reinforcements come from London. Wormold is in a panic now and doesn't know what to do.

Our Man in Havana can be read as a both a thriller and a satirical comedy. It's a fascinating look at the human condition, as well as international intrigue and the spy world. This entertaining novel is enjoyable reading for anyone who wants to understand the fifties, the Cold War, and the Cuban Revolution.

[booksfordinner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the first Graham Greene I've ever read, and I'm sorry I waited this long. I can see how he certainly influenced Le Carre, not just in his genre, but in his straightforward, solid style. Not a lot of wasted words here, but vivid nonetheless. I almost felt as if I were watching movie while reading this, though this apparently was not one of his novels that were originally film treatments.

[kerns222 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Nice start. Typical Greene characters: expat vacuum cleaner salesman plodding thru Cuban life, one hyperCatholic countryclubing teen daughter, and one German drinking friend. Then the caricatures start: the Brit secret agent, the head of intelligence without any, the MI6 Miss Moneypennyesque bureaucrat, and most sketchily drawn, the evil Cuban torture chief.

Now, a bit of a spoiler:

Torture for the reader begins when the new woman from the agency arrives (knows French--close enough for Intelligence work). A Brit comedy of bad manners ensues starting with the soda water episode and the torturer. We know the book will end badly at that point.

Codes get more complicated, agents die, and the atomic vacuum cleaner blasts off. Our expat is almost poisoned but, as must in a comedy, all ends well with salary, marriage, England, and finishing school for the daughter.
Probably sounds funnier than it is. BTW, best scene is MI6 reviewing the vacuum cleaner plans sent by secret diplomatic pouch early in the book.