The Slaves of Solitude (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

Patrick Hamilton (Author), David Lodge (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: New York Review Books Classics | Publication Date: February 20, 2007

England in the middle of World War II, a war that seems fated to go on forever, a war that has become a way of life. Heroic resistance is old hat. Everything is in short supply, and tempers are even shorter. Overwhelmed by the terrors and rigors of the Blitz, middle-aged Miss Roach has retreated to the relative safety and stupefying boredom of the suburban town of Thames Lockdon, where she rents a room in a boarding house run by Mrs. Payne. There the savvy, sensible, decent, but all-too-meek Miss Roach endures the dinner-table interrogations of Mr. Thwaites and seeks to relieve her solitude by going out drinking and necking with a wayward American lieutenant. Life is almost bearable until Vicki Kugelmann, a seeming friend, moves into the adjacent room. That’s when Miss Roach’s troubles really begin.
Recounting an epic battle of wills in the claustrophobic confines of the boarding house, Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude, with a delightfully improbable heroine, is one of the finest and funniest books ever written about the trials of a lonely heart.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Patrick Hamilton is the great forgotten man of 1930s and 1940s fiction." --Time Out London

"One of Hamilton's finest novels...The Slaves of Solitude is a pitch-perfect comedy, in which all the passions and tensions of war are enacted in a seedy boarding house in Henley-on-Thames." —The Independent

"I enjoyed every page of this novel, and have never had the pleasure of seeing the panoply of loneliness and depression employed to such brilliant comic effect." —Katherine Powers, The Boston Globe

“The author sketches the everyday with a deft, often comedic touch, yet never loses sight of the ultimate pathos of the human condition.” —Newsday

"A welcome opportunity for contemporary readers to discover [Patrick Hamilton]...The author sketches the everyday with a deft, often comedic touch, yet never loses sight of the ultimate pathos of the human condition." —Los Angeles Times

“Gritty, real, tough, and sardonic.... If you were looking to fly from Dickens to Martin Amis with just one overnight stop, then Hamilton is your man.” —Nick Hornby

"My favourites are the novels which capture the gloom, grubbiness and paranoia of Forties London life—for example...Patrick Hamilton’s fabulously poignant The Slaves of Solitude and Hangover Square." —Sarah Waters

“Patrick Hamilton is being revived again. And it looks serious this time… JB Priestley was an early supporter. Hamilton's book The West Pier was generously described by Graham Greene as "the best novel ever written about Brighton". He was John Betjeman's favourite contemporary novelist. Writers from Julie Burchill to Doris Lessing are warm admirers. Biographer Michael Holroyd has written numerous essays and introductions. Nick Hornby recently described him as 'my new best friend'.” —The Independent

About the Author

Patrick Hamilton (1904—1962) was born into a literary family and became active in the theater at a young age. He was a prolific writer, both of fiction and for the stage, and a notorious alcoholic. Among his most famous novels are Hangover Square and Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (forthcoming from NYRB Classics).

David Lodge is the author of several novels, including Author, Author, Changing Places, Small World, Nice Work, Paradise News, and Therapy. He has also written many works of literary criticism, including The Art of Fiction and Consciousness and the Novel: Connected Essays. He lives in Birmingham, England.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (February 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590172205
• ISBN-13: 978-1590172209
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #459,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tempest in a Tearoom, February 23, 2007

By 

Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: The Slaves of Solitude (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

The most atypical of Patrick Hamilton's novels (and perhaps the most beloved), THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE takes place in a suburban boarding house in 1943 where the heroine Miss Roach--intelligent, lonely, and on the cusp of middle age--has moved to escape the dangers of the Blitz. Commuting from the publishing house where she reads manucsripts in London, she spends her nights wandering the deserted unlighted streets, necking in parks with American soldiers, and being bullied at dinner by the sly and pompous autocrat of the dining room, Mr. Thwaites, another lodger at the Rosamund Tearoom where most of the action is set. This beautifully constructed little novel perfectly captures the mood of its time. It also anticipates the fascination with the alienation common among shabby-genteel boarding houses and pension-hotels that emblematizes the dilapidated middle-class culture of the UK in the twenty-five years after the war (as in Terrence Rattigan's SEPARATE TABLES or Elizabeth Taylor's MRS. PALFREY AT THE CLAREMONT). The novel is in many ways exploring the nature of war itself on a figurative level, but it also first and foremost a comedy. Miss Roach's boarding-house nemeses, the sinister and German-born Vicki Kugelmann and the splenetic Mr. Thwaites, are so memorably awful and unpleasant they win the reader's heart immediately; Mr. Thwaites, in particular, is so beautifully drawn as to equal the best comic secondary creations of Dickens or Austen. The novel touches upon all kinds of tricky ideas about paranoia and consciousness that a clever reader might be interested in teasing out further, but simply as a comedy of manners this novel is a pure tonic.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, intelligent, witty and humane. A lost master., November 14, 2000

By 

Chandler (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Slaves of Solitude (20th Century Classics) (Paperback)

Along with Hangover Square and One Thousand Streets Under the Sky, this is a tremendous novel. Hamilton writes beautifully about a cast of dreadfuls- the parochial bores, the bitchy backstabbing friends, and above all the boozers.

It is rare to read a book set in the 1940s which still seems so contemporary. The humour is biting and the depths and subtletys of character equal to Greene, Waugh and their ilk. Hamilton's writing brings to mind the Martin Amis school of tales from the London gutter, but his characters are achingly alive and never seem cartoonish.

If you can get your hands on the above(try amazon.co.uk), read all three...

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sharing Solitude, January 19, 2008

By 

Gary Severance - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Slaves of Solitude (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

The Slaves of Solitude (New York Review Books Classics)
Patrick Hamilton's work is gaining attention as a result of a 2007 publication of The Slaves of Solitude by The New York Review of Books. Originally published in 1947, it tells the story of residents in a boarding house in a small village located on a train line to London. Although they share the same dining room and lounge, the characters live their lives in solitude, limited by the conditions imposed on civilians by 1943 World War II. The distinguishing factor is the insight of the players that ranges from minimal to obsessive. This is a very engaging novel that immerses the reader in the era, location, and interaction of the characters. Readers are confronted by their own solitude and learn that insight is the result of sharing experiences with others. Hamilton's novel shows that war prevents isolation but encourages people to explore their solitude.