The Long Pursuit

Film rights were sold.[1]

Cleary adapted the novel into a script for the director Mark Robson before publication. The film was going to be called Escape Route and Robson hoped to star Paul Newman, but no movie was made.[2]

Cleary started writing the story as a novel in London. He says he was 80-90 pages into it when contacted by Mark Robson, who was looking for a World War Two adventure. Robson read the pages and enjoyed the story. He wanted to buy the rights but asked for Cleary to do the script first. He worked on the script during 1966 and in August of that year said the film was likely to be made in the Philippines or Jamica.[3]

In November 1966 Cleary was then turning the script into a novel. He said "I am actually filling out the bones of a scenario and I find it harder to write than any other book I’ve done. It is like working backwards." Cleary said he based the story on research and his own experiences fighting in Syria. "It was the same sort of fighting, all over and around civilians. It is in a way concerned with the beginning of the Vietnam thing, and the whole Asian problem, though I don’t presume to know my way around that quicksand. I’m as confused as hell, like everyone else. But this is the first time I’ve had to write to a deadline with a book, which is probably helping to make it difficult.” [4]

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