Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: A London Trilogy by Patrick HamiltonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
At the Midnight Bell, a quiet struggle embroils the hearts of three people: Ella the barmaid loves Bob the waiter, and Bob is hopelessly in love with Jenny--a prostitute with worries of her own.
This is a trilogy comprised of three novellas: The Midnight Bell (Bob's story), The Siege of Pleasure (Jenny's story), and The Plains of Cement (Ella's story) as these three unfortunates struggle against their fate in the backdrop of 1930s London. Hamilton has a gift for characterization, and each of the three vertices of the failed love triangle display his virtuosity at getting into the heart of each character.
Hamilton's side characters are something to behold: the denizens of the bar where Bob works, the two spinsters who employ Jenny, and Ella's pushy suitor feel like people Dickens might have written about, and the humor they bring relieves some of the bleakness of the main stories. His writing is gorgeous, witty, and sympathetic to these anguished souls.
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