The Lowlife (Faber Editions)

One Londoner gambles on his own life in this lost classic by ‘one of the great English Jewish novelists’ (Times), introduced by Iain Sinclair.

‘Terrific. Propulsive, funny and touching.’ Sebastian Faulks
‘A fascinating snapshot of a lost London world, by a remarkable neglected writer.’ Sarah Waters
A wonderfully enduring novel . . . A great rediscovery.’ William Boyd
‘Perfect . . . Captures London in all its grime and glory.’ Benjamin Myers

Never give up hope before the dogs have crossed the finishing-line.

Harryboy Boas is a lowlife gambler. When he’s not at the track, he lives in a Hackney boarding house, reading Zola, eating salt beef, pressing trousers and repressing wartime memories. But when a new family moves into the apartment downstairs, his life starts to unravel and Harryboy soon finds himself sinking into a murky East End underworld where violence, guilt and gangsters are the inevitable result for those who cannot pay their dues.

A celebrated cult classic, The Lowlife brilliantly evokes post-war East London – dog tracks, sandwich shops, tenements, sex workers, newly arrived West Indians and Jews leaving for Finchley – all seen through the tragicomic eyes of Harryboy, our picaresque rogue hero suffering from ‘existential burn-out in the shadow of the Holocaust’ (Iain Sinclair) and driven to bet, brag and beg to survive.

‘The greatest British novelist of the last war and among the finest, most underrated, of the postwar period.’ Guardian