Alexander Baron
The Lowlife
Pbk published April 2000 by Harvill at £6.99
ISBN: 1860468292
'The Lowlife is a beautifully observed, understated study of an East End Jewish gambler that deals subtly with the consuming guilt of those Jews who took no art in the War... a novel which has acquired something of an underground cult' John Williams, Guardian
East London, an area of dog-tracks and boarding houses, of winners and losers,
but mostly of losers.
Harryboy is lowlife, scum. But if he leaves the track after the thirteenth race quids in,
everyone'll say, there goes Harryboy Boas, King of the track. Trouble starts for
Harryboy when the Deaners move into his Hackney boarding house. Quicker than he
can place a bet on a dog, Harryboy finds himself the admired hero and evil genius of
the family, particularly for the child Gregory. But Harryboy is also the victim of a
secret guilt of his own, something unknown even to his doting sister.
'No matter how sordid the situation, how depraved the thoughts and ambitions,
the reader compulsively goes along with Harry ... For all its hard and cunning
realism this is an exceptionally moving book'
Alexander Baron, who died in December 1999, was born into the then largely jewish
East End. He wrote the acclaimed trilogy of war novels, From the City From the
Plough There's No Home and The Human Kind drawing on his own experiences of
the war. He published in total 14 novels, often set in a familiar London world, of
which The Lowlife, first published in 1963,is regarded as a classic of London fiction.
Sebastien Japrisot
One Deadly Summer
Pbk published April 2000 by Harvill at £6.99
ISBN: 1860467733
In the provincial French town to which her family has moved, Eliane is the object of fascination and obsession. She is as voluptuous as the photo of Marilyn Monroe she treasures, and is both lusted after by the men and feared by the women.
