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Harryboy Boas is a gambling man who loves the dogs. He lives in the quietly respectable streets of Hackney and keeps himself to himself. Until, that is, a new family moves into his building. Step by step, the ordered - if faintly disreputable and financially rackety - life he has led begins to unravel. He is drawn into a murky underworld where violence and revenge are the inevitable payback for those who can't come up with the money. A brilliant portrayal of a way of life in its last days in the 1960s.
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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Alexander Baron isn't a well-known novelist nowadays, despite the fact that his first book sold over a million copies in its day. Some background I've researched - the author (born 1917) was brought up in East London, the setting of 'The Lowlife', and was active in the anti-fascist struggle of the 1930s. He fought six years in the war, and was in the first wave of landings on D-Day. This experience formed the subject of his first novel, 'From the City, From the Plough' (1948), which earned critical acclaim (one critic called it "the only war book that has conveyed any sense of reality to me") and became an instant best seller. It has often compared to the classic, 'All Quiet on the Western Front'. It has recently been re-issued and is available through Amazon.co.uk.
After three war novels, Baron turned to another topic familiar to him - London life and the personalities, destinies, hopes and tragedies of the metropolis. 'The Lowlife' (1963) is one of these novels. It is a gripping narrative of the ups and downs of an East End gambler. Harryboy Boas is intelligent and able, and yet is listless and driven by a secret guilt from his past to escape emotional attachment or responsibility in wild rushes of excitement on the dog tracks or racecourse, in loveless sex in 'swinging' sixties Soho, in drink and gourmet food, or in long sessions of reading the literature he loves. Against his will he finds himself drawn into the life of a neighbouring family, into its petty domestic joys, worries and conflicts, until his inner demons threaten to overwhelm both him and this innocent household. In a gripping climax, he tries to redeem himself and save the family whom his actions have unwittingly but inevitably brought to the verge of destruction.
This book is a compelling and moving narrative of flawed humanity in its dignity and suffering, with its fears and aspirations. It is a realistic portrait of sixties London life and mores (it's one of the first British novels to include Caribbean immigrants among its characters) and of the highs and lows of the 'lowlife' gambler. The style is disciplined, unaffected, precise and yet deeply engaging. Readers who enjoy this novel should try to find another of Baron's London novels, 'King Dido' (1969) - another finely structured, closely observed novel, in this case a tragedy of poverty, violent tribalism and social aspirations set in the East End during 1911, the Coronation year of George V. Unfortunately, this book is out of print. With justification, in my opinion, Baron has been called "the greatest British novelist" of the Second World War and "among the finest of the postwar period." It is time to acknowledge this again.
Two minor points - the Introduction to this book is written by Iain Sinclair, not Pinter. Secondly, the Alexander Baron who wrote 'The Lowlife', 'From the City, From the Plough', 'There's No Home', 'The Human Kind' and ten other novels is NOT the same Alexander Baron as the author of the many highly polemical and politically tendentious pamphlets listed under this name on the Amazon catalogue. Unfortunately, the computer has no way of distinguishing between writers of the same name. It's a pity, since these authors are poles apart.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What a great book. Well done to Harvill for letting us into the big secret: The Lowlife is a brilliant book that deserves to be a British classic. The writing has amazing clarity and strength, and is by turns funny, poignant and moving - and also packs a pretty amazingly powerful punch, too. I can't praise this book enough - except to say that it also opens a window on a forgotten world - early-Sixties London, fantastically evoked. Buy it and tell all your friends to buy it too.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Set in London in the early sixties "The Lowlife" is a compelling, realistic and moving tale of the life of a fortysomething Jewish gambler called Harryboy. Harryboy lead us through the race tracks of London, Sixties soho and the bombed out wreckage of the East End in his attempt to obliterate a painful secret in his past. King of the race track by night, Harryboy is an isolated figure by day, disenchanted with people, intimate with no one save the company he pays for. In an attempt to help a family he feels attached to, Harryboys debts spiral out of control and life grow darker and bleaker. Similar in style to the "L shaped room" and "Saturday night, Sunday morning" I found this novel compulsive reading. It is beatifully written in a clear, concise but rich style. A well deserved reissue.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Lowlife
Excellent book. Great depiction of Hackney in the 70's.
Also covers gambling addiction very well.
Read it for our book club and got excellent reviews all round.
Also covers gambling addiction very well.
Read it for our book club and got excellent reviews all round.
Published 7 months ago by Mr. Simon Newton
A London Classic
This is a great book that gives a vivid picture of London in the late 1950s. Baron is a much overlooked author despite standing way above many of his contemporaries. Read more
Published 24 months ago by Celtic Ghirl
A fine novel
This is a fine book written out of a depth of experience and feeling common to a number of Jewish London writers, such as Israel Zangwill in his earlier work and Gerald Kersh (also... Read more
Published on 14 May 2001
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