Review
Heart of the matter | William Boyd | The Guardian
Giles Foden sifts the many selves of William Boyd in Any Human Heart, where the author turns his gaze inwards.
A quotation from Henry James furnishes the title of William Boyd's new novel: "Never say you know the last word about any human heart." These "intimate journals" of Logan Mountstuart initially seem ready for the challenge. But, as becomes clear, both reality and art have a way of endlessly bifurcating the whole truth into many.
Born in 1906 and brought up in South America, Logan is the son of a Scottish beef baron, Francis Mountstuart, and his secretary, Mercedes de Solis. "I stir the memory soup in my head hoping gobbets of Uruguay float to the surface. I can see the frigorifico - a vast white factory with its stone jetty and towering chimneystack. I can hear the lowing of a thousand cattle waiting to be slaughtered, butchered, cleaned and frozen."
In conversation with William Boyd