| Some dads teach their kids to read, or how to ride a bike. For the spy novelist John le Carré, lessons from his father took a more unusual form. The older man, Ronnie, the son of a mayor, did not put his privileged birth to good use, instead pursuing a life of near-constant cons and deceptions. Le Carré, the author of “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” remembers an early-childhood encounter with his father in prison—or thinks he does. Ronnie, a confirmed former inmate, denied to his son that the visit ever happened. Like many accounts of a dysfunctional upbringing, le Carré’s mixes mordant humor with poignancy, although the author is too unsentimental to engage in much of the latter. Less typically, the piece is partly the product of research conducted by two detectives, whom le Carré hired to separate fact from fiction regarding his own youth. Their efforts didn’t come to much, but you can see why their services were needed. Ronnie’s lies and misdeeds were all-encompassing, at times involving gambling in Monte Carlo, gangsters in East London, and swindled pensioners living across the street. Reading le Carré’s remembrances, it’s easy to understand why he might have been drawn to tales of duplicity and distrust. Le Carré became one of the twentieth century’s prolific writers—and, he reflects, “How I got out from under Ronnie, if I ever did, is the story of my life.” | 
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