The Lowlife (Faber Editions)

Extraordinary.

The wonder of The Lowlife is that it does justice to a place of so many contradictions … One of the best fictions, the truest accounts of [Hackney, London].

The greatest British novelist of the last war and among the finest, most underrated, of the postwar period . . . The Lowlife has acquired something of an underground cult.

The Lowlife falls in that hinterland between the war and the birth of pop culture. It is the most perfectly proportioned London novel, capturing the grind of scheming, dreaming, struggle – and, of course, the city in all its grime and glory.

With a finely attuned ear, Alexander Baron gave voice to London's working class poor, their hopes, fears and aspirations. Perhaps his finest embodiment of this is in his flash dreamer, Harryboy Boas in The Lowlife – a World War II veteran who lives on his wits and winnings at the dog tracks, lavishing gelt on 19th century French novels, fine living and dandy outfits. A Jewish East Ender – like his author – Harryboy observes successive waves of immigrants bringing colour to the Stoke Newington Streets and the rise of gangsterism in his old Whitechapel manor, evincing a visceral rendering of a city on the cusp between the Ration Book Fifties and the Swinging Sixties. A book that was never from the pocket of fellow Stoke Newington dreamer and schemer, Malcolm McLaren.

The story of a dreamer, a dreamer who believes in magic, the magic of the dogtrack – where winning big is a way of escaping the mundane and maybe the past, a chance to enjoy the high life. But Hackney boy Harry Boas is haunted. He is addicted to the next bet, the thrill of the gamble, a culture loaded with danger. Alexander Baron’s The Lowlife is a reflective gem of London literature.