The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton

Reading The Slaves of Solitude was a bit like playing with a jack-in-the-box.  The plot kept me on edge, some of the characters upset me, but I kept turning the pages to see how it would all turn out. 

The Rosamund Tea Rooms is the boarding house in Thames Lockdon where Miss Roach resides to escape the bombs falling in London.  It also houses the obnoxious Mr Thwaites, a relentless bully.  At least in London the bombs were hit or miss.

'Miss Roach now tried to dodge his fury, to apologize, in so far as it was possible, for the present state of affairs on the Eastern Front, by smiling, making a vaguely assenting and agreeable noise in her throat, and looking hard and giddily at her soup.  But Mr Thwaites was not the sort of man who would permit you to look at your soup when he was anxious to talk about the Russians.'

It was excruciating to enter the gladiator's arena that was the dining room.  Peripheral characters would either sit in silence or try to appease the bully with soft snippets while waiting to see how uncomfortable things got before a retreat was in order.  When an American Lieutenant takes an interest in Miss Roach I thought perhaps he would provide a refuge or at least a lovely distraction.  The reality wasn't nearly as appealing and his idea of showing a woman a good time involved propping up the bar.  Her most toxic relationship wasn't with either of the aforementioned men though, it was with a German woman she befriends who ends up moving into the boarding house.  Vicki Kugelmann laughs and flirts her way into a threesome with the Lieutenant and Miss Roach which can only end badly.  Worse still, Vicki entertains the bully, Mr Thwaites, in the dining room.

So many people have described The Slaves of Solitude as an enjoyable read but I found it uncomfortable.  Which I suppose is all down to Patrick Hamilton's writing skill.  From a personal perspective, as someone who was raised in an atmosphere of alcohol and bullying he nailed the tension in that dining room.  But on a cheerier note there are a couple of scenes involving the etiquette faux pas of using someone else's comb that had me laughing out loud.  The last twenty or so pages were the most satisfying for me and made me really glad to have hung in there.

As far as books set in boarding houses go I preferred London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins, accidental murder and all.  But it's good to step outside of your comfort zone when you're reading for pleasure.  It can't all be about pots of tea and slices of cake!  I just don't know what I was thinking when I also bought Hamilton's Hangover Square but no doubt I'll get through that as well.

London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins

The boarding house on 10 Dulcimer Street in Kennington shelters some very interesting characters. 

Set in the late thirties, Collins was writing about the London of his day.  Unbeknownst to many, war was looming between countries but there were also conflicts brewing on a smaller scale under this roof.  And in the charming way of the author he would say 'Step this way and have a look...'

Mrs Vizzard is a lonely widow who rents out rooms in her house.  The lodgers tend to be long-term residents and have become as good as family with each other.  Mr and Mrs Josser live there with their twenty-year old daughter, Doris.  The book opens with Mr Josser retiring from his job and carrying the contents of his desk along with his retirement gift, a huge mantle clock, home on the tram...which he proceeds to drop.

Connie lives with her bird, Duke, and never having much she struggles to make ends meet.  Trouble has a way of finding Connie and sometimes she goes looking for it.  A quirky characteristic of hers is that if there's a vehicle leaving Dulcimer Street then Connie makes sure she's in the passenger seat whether she has been invited or not.

Mr Puddy is a lazy night watchmen with a perpetually stuffed nose and his dialogue is written as such.  His daily grind is pretty much going to work and thinking about his next meal with tinned goods being about as good as it gets.  He has a serendipitous moment of glory when he's awarded a George Cross for saving a fireman's life during a drop of incendiary bombs.  The thing is...he was crawling his way out of a fire and the fireman just so happened to have grabbed onto him as he went past!

Mrs Boon and her delusional son, Percy...now there's a creepy fellow.  A mechanic, he turns to the theft of cars in order to make more money.  With an eye for the Josser's daughter he figures the extra cash will go a long way to securing a future with her but things go bad....real bad.  There are court proceedings and bad press which bring shame to the boarding house and despair to Mrs Vizzard, who runs an upstanding establishment!  Poor Mrs Boon will never see the bad in her son and most of the time a quiet word with the Lord (and a hanky) sees her through.

Doris could care less about Percy in that way.  Being a modern girl and wanting independence she rents a flat with her less than pure friend, Doreen.  I burst out laughing when Doreen convinces Doris that the extra cash for a phone would be well rewarded by loads of phone calls to do exciting things but the phone never rings because nobody they know has a phone!

A sham of a mystic (is there any other kind?) appears one day in the form of Mr Squales.  Now there's a slippery character.  He knows all the right things to say and do and in short order has Mrs Vizzard falling in love.  She can barely look at the portrait of her dearly departed husband because of the thoughts she has in her head.  But 'Qualito' is always on the look out for other lonely widows whose bank accounts are more bountiful.  Such a cad!

In the latter bit of the book war breaks out and you experience shelters, rationing, bombings, fighter planes, child evacuation and telegrams.  There is also parliamentary talk and some discussion of the Fuhrer so not all kitchen drama in case you're wondering.

Norman Collins is an amazing writer who brought these characters to life for me.  There was no nuance too small for him to mention which explains some of the reason for its length at over 700 pages but in no way did this bog things down.  If this era, or London, interests you then you must read this book and if you love both...well then, you're in for a treat.