The Slaves of Solitude – Patrick Hamilton (1947)

My introduction to Patrick Hamilton was initially through the enthusiastic reviews of other book bloggers. Last year I read Craven House, Patrick Hamilton’s second novel written when he was only twenty-two. I enjoyed it immensely, realising it promised much for his later work. The Slaves of Solitude like that earlier novel is set in a boarding house but it is clear that by the 1940s Hamilton’s gift for character had considerably sharpened. This novel was every bit as good as I had been promised it would be.

“London, the crouching monster, like every other monster has to breathe, and breathe it does in its own obscure, malignant way. Its vital oxygen is composed of suburban working men and women of all kinds, who every morning are sucked up through an infinitely complicated respiratory apparatus of trains and termini into the mighty congested lungs, held there for a number of hours, and then, in the evening, exhaled violently through the same channels.”

1943 and the middle of the Second World War, spirits wearied, no doubt from years of deprivation, bombings and the blackout among other things. Miss Roach formerly of London, has taken shelter from the bombings she has come to fear in Thames Lockdon, a fictional town on the Thames within easy reach of the capital, but relatively safe. Now in her late thirties, Miss Roach is considered no longer young, but she isn’t unattractive – and I sensed she wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel. She has taken a room at the Rosamund Tea Rooms boarding house, run by Mrs Payne. Here she lives alongside a group of equally grey and invisible souls, who struggle to fit in comfortably anywhere in the world as it currently is.

The dining room is where everyone comes together, and it is here as well as in the upstairs lounge that Mr Thwaites rules supreme. He is an ageing man full of absurdities, a bully who likes to single someone out and interrogate them. These days Miss Roach who shares a table with Mr Thwaites and Mrs Barratt is his preferred target. The more uncomfortable Miss Roach becomes the more Mr Thwaites seems to enjoy himself. Each morning Miss Roach must make herself mentally ready for the onslaught – promising herself he won’t get to her today. Yet, Mr Thwaites always knows what buttons to press, teasing her about her politics, making sly insinuations, which Miss Roach struggles not to rise to. Mr Thwaites is a fantastically drawn character, an absolute monster who I wouldn’t want to share a dining table with.

“The meal was breakfast: the subject, utility clothing. ‘As for the stuff they’re turning out for men nowadays,’ said Mr Thwaites bitterly, ‘I wouldn’t give it to my Valet.’

Mr Thwaites’ valet was quite an old friend. An unearthly, flitting presence, whose shape, character, age, and appearance could only be dimly conceived, he had been turning up every now and again ever since Miss Roach had known Mr Thwaites. Mostly he was summoned into being as one from whom all second-rate, shoddy, or inferior articles were withheld. But sometimes things were good enough for Mr Thwaites’ valet, but would not do for Mr Thwaites.”

Miss Roach’s dull days which must start and end at the Rosamund Tea Rooms boarding house, are lifted out of the mundane by an American lieutenant, who she meets to go drinking with – the drinking leads to some teenage-esque gropings on a bench in the park. All of which is enough to get Miss Roach’s imagination quite fired up

Miss Roache has another new friend; Vicki Kugelmann – a German born woman, who has lived in England long enough to avoid internment. They meet over drinks in the same pub where Miss Roach has entertained her American. Soon, Vicki announces that she has been round to the Rosamund Tea Rooms and spoken to Mrs Payne and will be moving into the room next to Miss Roach. Even at this early stage Miss Roach is nervous, she has started to see aspects of Vicki’s personality that she doesn’t quite like. However, her problems are only just beginning.

Vicki Kugelmann makes Mr Thwaites look like a mere amateur – her style is more subtle, belittling Miss Roach in ways that Miss Roach later wonders if she has imagined. Vicki loves to go out with the American and his friend, insisting that Miss Roach always join them. These evenings are long, and drink fuelled, and Miss Roach finds she doesn’t enjoy herself at all on these occasions which Vicki seems to dominate. Gradually, Vicki begins to get under Miss Roach’s skin, she starts to lose sleep.

“What a thing this sleeplessness was!…If sleep, she thought, could be compared to a gentle lake in a dark place, the sleeplessness was a roaring ocean, a raging, wind-buffeted voyage, lit with mad rocket-lights, pursued by wild phantoms from behind, plunging upon fearful rocks ahead, a mad tempest of the past and present and future all in one. Through all this the pale, strenuous mariner must somehow steer a way, until at last the weary dawn, not of sleep, but of resignation to sleeplessness, comes to calm the waters of the mind.”

What Hamilton so excels at in this novel is in the portrayal of the suffocating atmosphere of the 1940s boarding house – the small shared dining tables, in a room where no private conversation is possible. The drab lives lived in drab rooms. Characterisation is faultless, Mr Thwaites and Vicki Kugelmann monstrously but faithfully drawn remain unforgettable. Poor Miss Roach is quite respectable, but she is meek and unused to having to stick up for herself. Hamilton has worked out the dynamics here to absolute perfection.

The Slaves of Solitude was definitely one of my highlights in my February reading.