Author: Patrick Hamilton

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

First published:1941

Setting: Earls Court, London, UK
Read in August 2013

My Rating ★★★★  3.8

My Waterstones Review

“Before you go out binge drinking, read this first!”

If you are suffering from schizophrenia or are generally depressed or lonely, don’t read this book. If you are stuck in a rut, drink and smoke too much and considering becoming a professional alcoholic, then you might learn something from this book. If you are thinking of trying something different and have never read any Patrick Hamilton, try Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky first, but do read this classic of pre-war London fiction that has a parallels with Patrick’s own life.

Book Review

Click! A shutter has fallen noiselessly in the head of George Harvey Bone, he is not physically deaf, but has fallen into an eerie world like a talkie film where the sound track has failed. Suddenly he remembers what he has to do, he has to kill Netta, but ..why? George Harvey Bone is suffering from schizophrenia.

It is Christmas 1938 and George is crazily in love with Netta Longdon, there is nothing more that he wants than to spirit Netta away to the country as his wife. But Netta is part of a gang that wanders the pubs of Earls Court looking for laughs, drinking and smoking and feeling lousy in the mornings. And then there is Mickey and Peter, ‘Taking a little stroll around Hangover Square’ is Mickey’s crack, and Peter, he is always around at Netta’s flat in the boarding-house, always appraising, remembering, bullying. 

It is six years since Patrick has written his trilogy called Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky set around The Midnight Bell pub. Here, his characters are firmly in a rut with not much sense of optimism, even the impending war, a filthy idea, is seen by George as a possible way out. But then Patrick was addicted to alcohol and although he was from a privileged background he was drawn to the darker side of ordinary life and lived in Earls Court himself. Common in Patrick’s writing are the comic turns, but ultimately this is a story of loneliness and homelessness of young people who without a job have little purpose in life other than to purchase the hangover.

The subtitle of this book, considered as one of Hamilton’s best is ‘A story of darkest Earl’s Court’!