Why read The Slaves of Solitude?

Book cover of The Slaves of Solitude

Book description

As World War II drags on, the lonely Miss Roach flees London for the dull but ostensible safety of a suburban boarding house in this comically rendered “masterpiece” from the author of Gaslight (The Times Literary Supplement)

England in the middle of World War II, a war that seems fated…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Slaves of Solitude as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Gerard Woodward

Author

Patrick Hamilton has a wonderfully simple and direct style, and is always utterly compelling, no matter if he’s writing about ordinary people going about their daily lives. This wartime novel seems to happen a long way from the war itself, though it is set in Maidenhead, which was far enough away from the capital to be thought safe for evacuees. We spend our time with a wonderfully cliquey and gossipy set of boarding house tenants who constantly compete with each other and have their own little wars and conflicts. Like many of Hamilton’s novels it has a theatrical quality, reading…

From Gerard's list on The best books with human stories behind World War Two.