Bookreporter
As much a testament to Jamaica as it is to Bond. The perfect book to understand the roots of one of the world’s most legendary cultural icons.
Vanity Fair (Hot Type Pick)
Matthew Parker’s Goldeneye spies on Ian Fleming’s love affair with Jamaica
The Telegraph
Throughout Matthew Parker’s account of Fleming’s post-war sojourns in Jamaica, and how they shaped his fiction, we can imagine Bond himself looking on and feeling a perverse stab of envy. Parker tells a wider story; that of an island and its people at a turning point in their history. Parker’s highly readable account of Fleming’s Jamaican life is less Thunderball and more Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea. Bond himself might have been a touch jealous.
Open Letters Monthly
Sparkling. Full of great quotes and salacious gossip. The Commander would be pleased.
Providence Journal
I could not put down this story. For devotees of James Bond, or Jamaica, or the British Empire of old, Goldeneye is most entertaining reading.
The Atlantic
The first book to explore the north-shore estate where the author and former intelligence officer Ian Fleming spent two months each year and wrote all the Bond books. The purchase of his tropical lair, the retreat from society, the way Fleming spent the latter half of his life there—these are all apparently telltale signs of a man who just can't handle getting older. What Parker's new book shows is how much that crisis latched itself onto James Bond, and how the defiant fantasy he provided against decline both restored Fleming and gave life to an immortal franchise.
The Buffalo News
A sophisticated history of how Fleming’s character developed. This is the beginning of the story of how Fleming and Jamaica, that desultory duo that generated Bond novels, first made contact.
Midwest Book Review
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.
Associated Press
Unique. Parker's Goldeneye is an appealing Caribbean history dressed as pop culture, and he adds complexity to Bond's legacy of vodka martinis, car chases and women in bikinis.
Mark O’Connell
Fascinating. Less a dry narrative of sandal wearing chaps paying over the odds for their Morland cigarettes than a studious array of thoughts and insight.
Country Life
One of the attractions of Matthew Parker’s book is that he not only reminds us of the origin of the Bond novels, but he fills in a lot of background about Jamaica—both its political path to independence and its later development as a tourist destination. Those seeking a world of sea, sunshine, girls, rum, tobacco and self-indulgent luxury will find it evoked here—and it is this they will remember, not the Spartan house Fleming built.
Nicholas Rankin
Matthew Parker's brilliant book Goldeneye is indispensable for anyone interested in the inner life of the enigmatic Ian Fleming and the whole James Bond phenomenon he created.
Paste Magazine (Best Books of March)
The soil from which Bond sprang is as virile as the spy himself. In exploring Jamaica, the island where Bond was born, Parker casts the entire canon in a refreshing—almost tropical—light. Through exhaustive research and interviews, Parker assembles an intricate portrait of not just Fleming, his coterie and his Goldeneye villa, but of Jamaica and the post-War remnants of the British Empire.
John Pearson
Supremely enjoyable. Matthew Parker has created a completely new picture of Fleming, Bond and the role of Jamaica in the making of the legend.
The Washington Post
Against a backdrop of the island’s evolution from colonialism to independence, Matthew Parker tells the story of Fleming’s Jamaican retreat, of the psychological fallout of the end of the British Empire and of how Bond parachuted in to offer solace in the form of escapist fantasy. With Goldeneye now a luxury resort and the public appetite for Bond movies undiminished, Parker’s book is an astute reminder of the price we pay for fantasy.
Book Riot
Parker gives us insight into how this exotic local nurtured Fleming's writing, as well as a glimpse at some of the interesting guests he entertained there, and a look into colonialism and the crumbling British Empire. This is Bond's real origin story.
Forbes
A
wonderful biography. If you like Bond, you’ll like this book.
New York Post
The iconic image of bikini-clad Ursula Andress stepping out of the Caribbean sea in the first James Bond movie ‘Dr. No’ is the stuff of fantasy. Now, Parker tells the story of the equally fantastic life of Bond creator Ian Fleming on the beaches of Jamaica, where he spent two months of every year from 1946 to 1964 at Goldeneye, the villa he built on the island’s northern coast, hobnobbing with celebrity residents Errol Flynn, Noel Coward and Lawrence Olivier. Read it while drinking a martini — shaken, not stirred.
Daily Mail
You might think there is nothing new to say about Ian Fleming—that every detail of his life has been obsessively picked over by biographers. Matthew Parker, though, has produced a book a illuminating as it is intriguing. Written in a quick-fire, atmospheric prose style that clearly owes something to Fleming’s own, it cracks along with all the urgency of a Bond novel.
Booklist (starred review)
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.
The Seattle Times
Insightful and engagingly written. Compelling. Goldeneye thoroughly explores Fleming’s life and provides glimpses of his neighbors and guests, among them Noel Coward, British royals, and, of course, Sean Connery. But the book’s real value is its examination of how Jamaica and Bond formed a microcosm of England’s changes in the 1950s and early ’60s.
The Times (UK)
An enjoyable, sun-soaked, alcohol-sodden addition to Bond literature.
The Independent (UK)
The evocation of the writer's voluptuous existence in Jamaica (and the unspoilt island itself) is nonpareil. Parker's record of a key period in the life of the writer makes a fascinating read.
Tony Parsons
The book that James Bond obsessives have been waiting for—a beautiful, brilliant history of Ian Fleming at home at Goldeneye, all of sun-drenched, gin-soaked, bed-hopping colonial Jamaica outside the window and 007 at the moment of his creation. This is THE BIG BANG OF BOND BOOKS—the world-weary romance, the impossible glamour, the sex, the travel, the legend, the longing for escape and adventure—it all starts right here.
The Spectator
Entertaining. Parker makes a convincing case that Jamaica is crucial to a proper understanding of the man and his work.
The Guardian
Persuasive, well researched and entertaining.
Literary Review
What makes Parker's book particularly fascinating is the way that, as a result of close and intelligent reading, he teases out how Fleming drew on the island, its culture and its post-war development for much of the atmosphere and incidental detail in the Bond series.
The Financial Times
Without Jamaica it is safe to say, there would have been no Agent 007. Matthew Parker sets the record straight in Goldeneye, his superb account of Fleming's Jamaica. This well researched, excellently written book tells of a rapid literary decline.
William Boyd
A completely fascinating, authoritative and intriguing book—especially for anyone interested in Ian Fleming and the James Bond phenomenon.
New Statesman
Matthew Parker’s account of Fleming’s experiences among the island’s dissolute late-colonial visitors—from film stars and royalty to the secret services—shows how a combination of a jet-set crowd and the exoticism of the setting inspired the James Bond books, all of which were written there.
Dallas Morning News
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
GQ
Best read somewhere hot, sipping something cool is Matthew Parker's brilliant addition to the canon of Jamaican travel writing and 007-ology, Goldeneye.
Andrea Levy
An amazing portrayal of British racial and colonial attitudes in the 1950s and 60s.
Daily Mail
You might think there is nothing new to say about Ian Fleming—that every detail of his life has been obsessively picked over by biographers. Matthew Parker, though, has produced a book a illuminating as it is intriguing. Written in a quick-fire, atmospheric prose style that clearly owes something to Fleming’s own, it cracks along with all the urgency of a Bond novel.
New York Post
The iconic image of bikini-clad Ursula Andress stepping out of the Caribbean sea in the first James Bond movie ‘Dr. No’ is the stuff of fantasy. Now, Parker tells the story of the equally fantastic life of Bond creator Ian Fleming on the beaches of Jamaica, where he spent two months of every year from 1946 to 1964 at Goldeneye, the villa he built on the island’s northern coast, hobnobbing with celebrity residents Errol Flynn, Noel Coward and Lawrence Olivier. Read it while drinking a martini — shaken, not stirred.
Associated Press Staff
Unique. Parker's Goldeneye is an appealing Caribbean history dressed as pop culture, and he adds complexity to Bond's legacy of vodka martinis, car chases and women in bikinis.
The Economist (Best Books of the Year)
A tumultuous rollercoaster of a book. A tale of wealth, bravery and debauchery.
The Washington Post Book World
A heartbreaking book.
John le Carré
An epic tale of human folly and endeavor, beautifully told and researched.
The Times
For the historian Matthew Parker, Jamaica was a microcosm of Britain's changing relationship with its imperial possessions and offers the key to a fresh understanding of Fleming and our own relationship with Bond.
The Los Angeles Times
An exemplary history, vigorously told.
The Independent
The evocation of the writer's voluptuous existence in Jamaica (and the unspoilt island itself) is nonpareil...Parker's record of a key period in the life of the writer makes a fascinating read.
The Wall Street Journal
An engaging journey to a mercifully vanished world.
Kirkus Reviews
2014-11-29
Parker (The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire, and War in the West Indies, 2011, etc.) considers Ian Fleming's escape to Jamaica, where he created James Bond and did his best to avoid the high-society life that followed him there.Fleming was not fond of many non-Brits, but he especially disliked Americans. About the only American Bond character who isn't a villain is Felix Leiter, a detective Bond cooperates with and often saves. Fleming discovered Jamaica's wonders in 1943 and quickly bought property with a private beach where he could write, using Jamaica in three of his novels. The house he built, Goldeneye, was spare and featured minimal modern conveniences. However, nature was at her best, and Fleming was happiest during the two months each year he spent in the Caribbean. It was Fleming's paradise; he loved the tropical blooms and the fascinating sea life. At the time, Jamaica was still ruled by a governor, and the racist attitudes of visitors reflected the attitude of empire. Eventually, Noël Coward became a neighbor and lifelong friend as the Jamaican tourist boom took off. Coward brought the jet-set crowd to discover the joys of island life, and anyone who was anyone showed up. Fleming, however, was asocial, heartily disliked the procession of guests and hated his wife's parties. He isolated himself to write, forbidding guests to even walk by his window. The author parallels Fleming's life with postwar events that planted the seed for the Bond character. He summarizes each of the Bond books as they reflect Cold War history—e.g., the Suez Crisis, the independence movements and increasing economic turmoil. A well-written look at Fleming's life, though the book is even better as an indictment of the anachronistic colonialism of the 1950s and the end of the British Empire.
