Harry Fabian is a ponce, a Flash Harry in an expensive suit, a cockney wide boy who adopts American tones and talks big, yet will never make it to the top. He operates in the Soho of the 1930s, a metropolitan tangle of dodgy geezers, prostitutes, spivs and strong-arm men. Twice filmed, Night and the City is a seminal low-life novel, which presents a vivid glimpse of a lost London. It also marks the return of a lost London author, Gerald Kersh, a maverick character whose life was as colourful as those of his most flamboyant creations. This new edition includes an introduction by John King.
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Review
A gem - one of those novels that collapse the distance between then and now, and not in a way that reflects well on us as a species.
-- Time Out, November 14, 2007
An understated literary classic
-- Guardian October 11 2007
From the opening scene it grabs you. Kersh is bound to win a new generation of fans. -- Jewish Chronicle November 2, 2007
-- Time Out, November 14, 2007
An understated literary classic
-- Guardian October 11 2007
From the opening scene it grabs you. Kersh is bound to win a new generation of fans. -- Jewish Chronicle November 2, 2007
From the Publisher
London Books is delighted to announce the re-issue of Gerald Kersh's vintage Soho, low-life masterpiece Night And The City, first published in 1938.
With a backdrop of the build-up to the Coronation celebrations of 1936, Harry Fabian swaggers around the bars, clubs and backstreets of Soho and the West End hustling for a pound note and invariably spending a fiver. He is a wide boy, a spiv and a ponce but most of all a fantasist heavily influenced by Hollywood films. Reality in the shape of exploited employees and prostitutes, family members and the forces of the law gradually impinges on the fantasy. With a colourful supporting cast of night-club owners, hostesses, wrestlers, pimps and barrow-boys Gerald Kersh has created an authentic and seductive landscape of the time and the place.
On first release Night And The City prompted much controversy being an early exposure of the seedier side of London that flourished behind the public face of the changing of the guards, the chiming of Big Ben and famous West End shows. Nevertheless, the novel endured and was filmed twice: firstly with Richard Widmark in 1950 and generally considered a film noir classic, and later starring Robert de Niro in 1992.
This edition includes a substantial introduction by contemporary author John King whose work includes The Football Factory trilogy, Human Punk, White Trash and The Prison House.
Gerald Kersh is the author of 19 novels and hundreds of short stories and articles. He died in the USA in 1968.
London Books is a new publisher formed by authors John King and Martin Knight. The company aims to bring old and new fiction together in a tradition that is original in its subject matter, style and social concerns. London Books believe that the marginalised fiction of the past can be as relevant and exciting today as when it was first published.
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By Ginger Webb
Format:Hardcover
This is a stunning novel that is hard to put down, such is the
power of the writing style and the warped attractiveness of the main
character, cockney wide boy Harry Fabian. Harry is an amoral spiv fixed on a slippery slope towards prison or, worse, a meeting with the cut-throat razor of the notorious Black Strangler, a disgruntled sap prowling the pubs and clip joints of 1930s Soho. While Fabian is the conman that drives the story, it is the London described by Kersh and the myriad personalities he has created that elevates the novel.
Gerald Kersh was a Soho face himself and his knowledge of the area and its
people means this book is the real deal, not just another observation by an
anthropologist looking in through the window of a dodgy pub he's too scared to enter. Kersh knew the score, and while he probably wouldn't rate Harry as much of a human being, he lets him condemn himself with his treatment of
those who help him, and worst of all, of his faithful streetwalking
girlfriend.
This is a well produced edition and comes with an introduction by John King, author of The Football Factory, who apparently discovered Kersh while walking home drunk through Soho and falling into a remainder bookshop. Kersh would have liked that chance meeting and you will love this book if you choose to read it.
power of the writing style and the warped attractiveness of the main
character, cockney wide boy Harry Fabian. Harry is an amoral spiv fixed on a slippery slope towards prison or, worse, a meeting with the cut-throat razor of the notorious Black Strangler, a disgruntled sap prowling the pubs and clip joints of 1930s Soho. While Fabian is the conman that drives the story, it is the London described by Kersh and the myriad personalities he has created that elevates the novel.
Gerald Kersh was a Soho face himself and his knowledge of the area and its
people means this book is the real deal, not just another observation by an
anthropologist looking in through the window of a dodgy pub he's too scared to enter. Kersh knew the score, and while he probably wouldn't rate Harry as much of a human being, he lets him condemn himself with his treatment of
those who help him, and worst of all, of his faithful streetwalking
girlfriend.
This is a well produced edition and comes with an introduction by John King, author of The Football Factory, who apparently discovered Kersh while walking home drunk through Soho and falling into a remainder bookshop. Kersh would have liked that chance meeting and you will love this book if you choose to read it.
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This has that subtle English quality, that mixture of fascination, tolerance and genuine social conscience which marks the 'low-life' writer of the 30s and 40s in both the UK and US. But the UK brand is a bit grittier, bit less shocked by real life and there's a liking for these margin-dwellers which informs even the sleaziest characters. Addictive stuff. That Kersh could write comedy better thn anyone is evident from Fowlers End. I'd like to see some of his wonderful horror stories reprinted, too.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Kersh dramatically contrasts the grasping, ruthless pimp, Harry Fabian with the altruistic artist, Adam. Their women, Zoe the prostitute and Helen, the idealist who,at first, seem worlds apart end up sharing the same greedy lust for money at any price. A cynical, superbly wriiten book with tension in every line that will have you gasping as you recognise its truthfulness. Kersh wrote many novels set during the 30's, 40's and 50's. Read this one and you will be wanting more.
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