Our Man in Cuba and Haiti

Abstract

In the summer of 1938 J. Maclaren-Ross lunched at Greene’s Queen Anne house on the north side of Clapham Common. He was twenty-six and had come to ask Greene’s permission to adapt A Gun For Sale for the radio. As they walked across the common to the pub, probably the one Greene used in The End of the Affair, Maclaren-Ross told him that he also sold vacuum cleaners. ‘Greene … halted abruptly and turned to take a good look at me,’ Maclaren-Ross remembers. ‘“Vacuum cleaners?”’ Greene asked, waiting attentively for details about the pay and the job. ‘“I thought of signing on myself at one time. To write a book about it afterwards of course. I never knew one could actually sell the things.”’¹