Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming's Jamaica - Hardcover

Sparkling. Full of great quotes and salacious gossip. The Commander would be pleased.

Supremely enjoyable. Matthew Parker has created a completely new picture of Fleming, Bond and the role of Jamaica in the making of the legend.--John Pearson, author of 'The Life of Ian Fleming'

Entertaining. Parker makes a convincing case that Jamaica is crucial to a proper understanding of the man and his work.

An amazing portrayal of British racial and colonial attitudes in the 1950s and 60s.--Andrea Levy, author of 'Six Stories and an Essay'

Persuasive, well researched and entertaining.

An enjoyable, sun-soaked, alcohol-sodden addition to Bond literature.

An outstanding survey packed with insights key to understanding Ian Fleming's world and how it translated to his famous James Bond character and scenarios, as well as a cultural and social survey of Jamaica's evolving importance in the world.

Hugely enjoyable and deliciously gossipy.

Parker's entertaining and well-researched biography dishes up a rich stew for fans of popular literature, travel writing, British and West Indian history, and filmmaking, all sauced with plenty of titillating celebrity gossip.

This is no guilty pleasure. It's a straight-up delight of a biographical narrative that crisply illuminates Bond, Fleming and the era when the sun was setting on the British Empire and dawning on the jet age. Parker is out to explain an era, a writer and a remarkable character. Mission accomplished

For two months every year, from 1946 to his death eighteen years later, Ian Fleming lived at Goldeneye, the house he built on a point of high land overlooking a small white sand beach on Jamaica’s stunning north coast. All the James Bond novels and stories were written here.This book explores the huge influence of Jamaica on the creation of Fleming’s iconic post-war hero. The island was for Fleming part retreat from the world, part tangible representation of his own values, and part exotic fantasy. It will examine his Jamaican friendships—his extraordinary circle included Errol Flynn, the Oliviers, international politicians and British royalty, as well as his close neighbor Noel Coward—and trace his changing relationship with Ann Charteris (and hers with Jamaica) and the emergence of Blanche Blackwell as his Jamaican soulmate.Goldeneye also compares the real Jamaica of the 1950s during the build-up to independence with the island’s portrayal in the Bond books, to shine a light on the attitude of the likes of Fleming and Coward to the dramatic end of the British Empire.