Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: A London Trilogy [Paperback]

Patrick Hamilton may be best known now for the playsRopeandGaslightand for the classic Alfred Hitchcock and George Cukor movies they inspired, but in his heyday he was no less famous for his brooding tales of London life. Featuring a Dickensian cast of pubcrawlers, prostitutes, lowlifes, and just plain losers who are looking for love—or just an ear to bend—Hamilton’s novels are a triumph of deft characterization, offbeat humor, unlikely compassion, and raw suspense. In recent years, Hamilton has undergone a remarkable revival, with his champions including Doris Lessing, David Lodge, Nick Hornby, and Sarah Waters.

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Skyis a tale of obsession and betrayal that centers on a seedy pub in a run-down part of London. Bob the waiter skimps and saves and fantasizes about writing a novel, until he falls for the pretty prostitute Jenny and blows it all. Kindly Ella, Bob’s co-worker, adores Bob, but is condemned to enjoy nothing more than the attentions of the insufferable Mr. Eccles; Jenny, out on the street, is out of love, hope, and money. We watch with pity and horror as these three vulnerable and yet compellingly ordinary people meet and play out bitter comedies of longing and frustration.

The rediscovery of English writer Hamilton (Hangover Square, The Slaves of Solitude) continues with this tale of obsessive love in the low-rent pubs of 1930s London - so evocatively rendered you almost smell the smoke and spilt ale. --Newsday

“No other English writer has written so acutely about sexual infatuation, embarrassment and self-delusion.” –Time Out

“Unsurpassed as a recorder of lonely urban existence in the mid-20th century.” –Lynne Truss,The Times[UK]

“Hamilton is a master at reproducing the inflated talk of betrayed lives.” –The Independenlóå