Gabriel's Moon

"The book opens in 1936, and you’ve got young Gabriel being tucked into his bed by his mum. He has a lamp in the shape of a moon. There’s such an economy of language: within about 20 pages you find out his backstory. He wakes up struggling to breathe. There’s smoke and the house is on fire. His mother is dead. He manages to escape and is adopted by his uncle. That start affects him for the rest of his life. His bedside lamp is blamed for the fire and the death of his mother. He has chronic insomnia—he can’t sleep. He goes to a therapist, which is quite an important part of this book. Again, it’s difficult with these thriller books because you can’t go down Spoiler Strasse, but there are things that unfold about what happened when he was just six years old. He becomes a travel writer and he’s in Congo. He’s not a political journalist, but he gets the opportunity to interview the then president, Patrice Lumumba. And as we all know, Lumumba dies in very suspicious circumstances , with the fingers very much pointed at the West. Gabriel has tapes of the interview, in which Lumumba says, ‘These three people are out to get me.’ So you can imagine how sought after these tapes are. Gabriel’s Moon was one of the suggestions from the Spybrary community for book of the year. I must confess I hadn’t read any William Boyd previously. Restless is the one everyone talks about, and also Any Human Heart . Boyd also wrote a Bond book, Solo , which I have on my shelves, but just not got round to. I was reminded very much of Eric Ambler . Ambler’s books are very much about the accidental spy and not someone who was trained as one. It’s someone who finds himself in a situation. Gabriel is flying back from Congo and he sees a woman reading his book on the flight. He thinks, ‘How cute! Someone is reading my book. Should I tell her?’ But he decides, ‘No, I won’t.’ She becomes involved in his life. He ends up running errands and messages for her. He’s sent to Spain to a man called Blanco. Gabriel is ‘the useful idiot’ or is he? There’s a lot of humor in the book and I’m sure William Boyd had a good giggle writing it. One of the characters teases Gabriel about his travel writing, the purple prose, and gives examples of his flowery language, which I thought was a lot of fun. Gabriel does drink a lot. I asked a good friend of mine who read the book what they thought of it. They said, ‘I didn’t like it because I didn’t like the protagonist.’ I said, ‘How can you not like Gabriel?’ and they replied, ‘He’s a sex maniac, he’s an alcoholic and he’s a stalker’. I said, ‘James Bond possesses at least two of those three characteristics, but you like him!’ For me, it wasn’t off-putting. He definitely has his sex drive, but we’re not talking Gregg Wallace here. Gabriel has an older brother who works for the Foreign Office, who has a big house in Highgate and lots of money. He goes there for Sunday roasts, and it’s a real contrast in their two lives. I love how this book weaves fact and fiction. You have the Lumumba plot as well as other real-life events that crop up. I love it when writers do that and Boyd does it really well. Boyd is a master storyteller. I’m not sure if this book would have worked so well with a less experienced writer, but the book really does work for me. Yes, and the mystery. There are twists in the book. Who is this woman? We’re trying to outwit the author to find out what’s happening first. Gabriel’s Moon is a profound exploration of the effect of espionage on the individual. I call Gabriel accidental, but he’s not hapless. He makes decisions and does a few things in the book that have serious consequences."