Publisher: Constable & Robinson

The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton

Posted May 22, 2017 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: The Slaves of Solitude (Goodreads)
Author: Patrick Hamilton
Published: Constable & Robinson, 1947
Pages: 327
Genres: Literary Fiction
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Patrick Hamilton is one of those authors I kept hearing about but no one had actually read him. An author that is often compared to Graham Greene (and sometimes Charles Dickens) and yet I could not tell you anything about his books. Well, until recently when I picked up his 1947 novel The Slaves of Solitude. Doris Lessing (who wrote the introduction to my edition called Patrick Hamilton “a marvellous novelist who’s grossly neglected”¹. What a delight it was to find a novelist like Hamilton, there was something quite thrilling about reading a novel that is underappreciated, like I was in on a literary secret but I just cannot keep quiet.

Patrick Hamilton was born to writer parents but due to his father’s alcoholism the family lived in boarding houses. He became a novelist and published his first novel Monday Morning (1925) in his twenties. His first major success was the play Rope (1929) which was later turned into a movie of the same name directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock. Another of his plays, Gas Light (1938) gave rise to the psychological term ‘gaslighting’ which is commonly used today. His writing is often associated with an acerbic humour but later in his life he started to write in a more misanthropic voice. His own alcoholism and disillusions towards capitalism are often the driving force in his novels believing that violence and fascism would mark the end of capitalism. The Slaves of Solitude is the only one of his works to deal with the Second World War directly.

The Slaves of Solitude explores the lives of the residents living in a boarding house of the small fictional town Thames Lockden during the Second World War. While largely focusing on the experiences of Miss Roach, who moved to the suburban town to escape the overwhelming terrors and rigor of a city. Hoping for a dull and uncomplicated life, Miss Roach soon finds that living in close proximity to others, the added pressure brought on by war, and then the appearance of Vicki Kugelmann makes things anything by simple.

This is a quiet novel exploring the life of Mary Roach, a spinster type character who is just looking for some solitude. The cast of characters living in the Rosamund Tea Rooms do not make life easy. There is Mr Thwaites, who is often described as the ‘President in Hell’; Miss Steele and Miss Barrett, two aging gossiping spinsters; a retired comedian and also her so-called friend Vicki Kugelman. The novel follows Miss Roach and Vicki as tensions between them rise, as they become rivals in love. The Slaves of Solitude turns into an exploration into the emotional struggle between the two and their love triangle in exquisite detail.

I often hate the term love triangle and far too often feels so fake and unrealistic. However in The Slaves of Solitude, Patrick Hamilton is able to explore this trope the right way. This is a highly emotional novel, as a reader you get to experience all the anger and jealousy that Miss Roach is feeling. Hamilton is able to construct this complex web of emotions, not just because of the love triangle but also drawing on the emotions caused by war and living together. What impressed me most was just how much raw emotion was being explored with all its nuances.

Even when exploring different stages of sobriety, Patrick Hamilton has this unique ability to capture the changes in emotions, manners and personality. I do not think I have ever read a book that can capture this as well as The Slaves of Solitude. There is something so satisfying about being taken on an emotional journey and know that the author has the skills to master every unique feeling that might come up along the way.

This is not a plot heavy book, but the character development is well worth reading. Make yourself a Gin and French (Miss Roach’s drink of choice) and give The Slaves of Solitude a go. I know I will be heading back into the writing of Patrick Hamilton very soon. This novel was hilarious and witty but was still able to capture the raw emotions of the characters. A balance that seems impossible to pull off but Patrick Hamilton seems to do it with ease. I cannot recommend The Slaves of Solitude more, and I hope that more people will be reading it in the future.

Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt

Posted June 3, 2016 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 4 Comments

Title: Mr. Splitfoot (Goodreads)
Author: Samantha Hunt
Published: Corsair, 2016
Pages: 322
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Ruth and Nat are orphans living in what could only be described as a crazy cult. Many years later, Ruth’s niece Cora finds herself pregnant. Ruth appears after years thought lost, but she cannot speak. She leads Cora on a mysterious mission, but where is she going? Mr. Splitfoot is an attempt at a contemporary gothic novel by author Samantha Hunt.

I picked this book up from the library for a number of reasons. I wanted to see a modern take on the gothic novel and I was interested in the cult-like plot. This book sounded like something I would really enjoy. But sadly I felt like Samantha Hunt just tried to do too much in this novel and nothing really came together as expected. I felt let down by the book and my only consolation was the fact I borrowed the book from the library instead of spending money on it.

Granted there is a lot of interesting elements within Mr. Splitfoot and by a more experienced writer this could of have been a beautifully layered novel. There is a touch of mystery, the gothic, the absurdity and horror elements to be found in the book. I felt like Hunt piled together every great idea she had and tried to pack it into the novel. This left me feeling like she had started so many threads but never actually finished them. The satirisation of religion, or the southern gothic cult, and the mystery or the coming of age story are all really good ideas. There are so many good ideas but at some point you need to stop cramming in ideas and focus on how they work together.

Mr. Splitfoot is an example of why I should never listen to hype. I think it is an entertaining read and there is a little bit of everything. However I wanted more depth, more exploration. I like the ideas the book presents but then it did nothing with them. I felt like this was just sloppy but for someone wanting a thrilling plot, this novel might work. I know I have very different taste in literature to the norm; I just need to remind myself not to fall for hype.

Sweetland by Michael Crummey

Posted September 8, 2015 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 0 Comments

Title: Sweetland (Goodreads)
Author: Michael Crummey
Published: Corsair, 2014
Pages: 320
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: Paperback

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Moses Sweetland is a grumpy old retired lighthouse keeper with strong ties to his home and town. For twelve generations, Sweetland’s family have made this Newfoundland town their home; in fact the town is named Sweetland. However now the fishing industry has dried up and the town is falling apart. The Canadian government has decided it is more cost effective to offer resettlement packages to everyone in Sweetland than try to maintain the town. There is one condition, everyone has to accept the offer for resettlement or no one will get a payout.

This novel was picked for my in-real-life book club, and it is not a book I would have picked up on my own. I started off not loving this novel; I wanted the author to explore all the secondary characters a little more. I thought they were all far more interesting and I could not see why the focus was on Moses Sweetland so much. I knew there was the exploration into the heritage but I thought that a look into a range of characters in this little town would make for a far more interesting novel.

I obviously did not understand what Michael Crummey was trying to do with Sweetland but it was not long before I was fully aboard. The book took a turn and there was something different happening within the novel that I was not expected. If I did some research into the premise of Sweetland, I would have discovered the plot but I like to go into a book not knowing. What I loved about this novel is the way it explores isolation and being haunted by memoires and the past.

I should explain that Moses Sweetland refused to leave Newfoundland and when everyone else left he was stuck in Sweetland alone. As a retired lighthouse keeper he thought he was prepared to live a life or solitude and isolation but that is nothing like living alone. Michael Crummey did a wonderful job exploring the idea of living alone and the descent into madness. Think Cast Away, except done well; sure, that movie did portray madness pretty well but Sweetland is on a whole new level.

I think the way Sweetland surprised me, really affected me more than the book itself. I really appreciated the way Michael Crummey wrote this book and really enjoyed all the themes that he explored. I need to read some more of Crummey’s novels, I think he is a bit of a hidden talent that needs more exposure. I hope all his other books are just as great as Sweetland and I plan to find out soon.

A Treacherous Likeness by Lynn Shepherd

Posted April 24, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Crime, Historical Fiction / 5 Comments

Title: A Treacherous Likeness (Goodreads)
Author: Lynn Shepherd
Published: Corsair, 2013
Pages: 336
Genres: Crime, Historical Fiction
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

In 1850, a young detective takes on a new case unlike anything seen before; Charles Maddox’s client is the surviving son of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley. Maddox has to track down some papers concerning the Shelleys that could be used for blackmail and ruin their literary legacy. This will take him into investigating the dark lives of not just Percy Bysshe Shelley but all the young Romantics and question the cause of death for Shelley’s first wife, Harriet.

This was a really difficult book to review but I will try hard to be fair and explore the two contradicting opinions I have about this book. First of all, I read this book with not much knowledge of the Romantics; I knew basics but I hadn’t explored them as much as I would have liked. I’ve been a fan of this literary movement even since the start of my reading life and most of you know that Frankenstein remains my favourite novel of all time. So when I heard about this book, I knew I wanted to read it.

Reading the book, I found it interesting; the writing style really reminded me of the time. Yet at times I felt like the writing was trying to reflect the time and sometimes it just did not feel right. I found myself rereading paragraphs trying to pick up what bothered me about them. I never really found the problem, I do not even think it was the writing that was my problem but more of the tone, but more on that later. When it comes to the mystery, everything felt pretty straightforward, piece by piece slowly revealed until the reader finally knows what was going on.

While I did have some problems with the book, all in all I was enjoying the book and would give it a rating of three stars, maybe three and a half. I didn’t find out much about the protagonist Charles Maddox as I would have liked but this could be because this detective appears in Lynn Shepherd’s other novel Tom-All-Alone. If I had read this book first I might have a different opinion towards Maddox. Which brings me to my problems; A Treacherous Likeness would have been a decent novel if it wasn’t using literary legends. This book made me want to explore more about the Romantic Movement, to its credit, but this was also its downfall.

After finishing this novel, I’ve been dipping in and out of three different books; The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein by Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler; Young Romantics: The Tangled Lives of English Poetry’s Greatest Generation by Daisy Hay; and Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer by Richard Holmes. All these Non-Fiction books are vastly different but I picked them to get more of an insight on the lives of the Shelleys. Now the Romantics are wonderfully complex people with equally complex relationships and I don’t understand what their lives were like but the creative licence this author took in A Treacherous Likeness to weave this story through only leads me to think one thing. With all I’ve learnt about Percy Bysshe Shelley and the others I’ve come to the conclusion that Lynn Shepherd mustn’t like them at all.

I’ve got more to learn about the lives of the great poets but after reading some of the non-fiction of the time and reflecting back on A Treacherous Likeness I can’t help thinking, while the author has excellent knowledge on these people there has to be hatred towards them as well. In A Treacherous Likeness there are the controversial statements of Mary Shelley not writing Frankenstein, killing her baby and with Percy Bysshe Shelley’s help pushing Harriett to suicide. While they have merit and we can’t be sure if these are true or not they still point towards a dislike of these people, Mary Shelley in particular. This could be the author’s attempt to weave her story through the facts and create this complex mystery; for me, after all the research it just comes across in a negative way.

I have a lot to learn about the Romantic Movement and I have to give A Treacherous Likeness credit for the re-spark in my interest in these people. I am not trying to be negative towards Lynn Shepherd; I think she has a great writing style and hope that she continues writing historical mysteries. I would prefer if it wasn’t based on real people because when it comes to the Romantics and Mary Shelley, I still adore them and don’t like to read anything that paints them in a horrible light. Sure they were not the nicest people, they made many mistakes but we can’t deny what they did for literature. I think I will have to try Tom-All-Alone one day just so I’m not judging this author on just one experience; her writing is worth reading, I just had some issues with this novel.