The Lowlife
Alexander Baron
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From the publisher
One man gambles on not only the racing dogs but his life in this charismatic rediscovered Jewish post-war classic of London’s seedy underbelly, introduced by Iain Sinclair.
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, brad and beg to survive.
‘Terrific.’ Sebastian Faulks