Of Love & Hunger

Richard Fanshaw has returned from a stint in colonial India. His past is shadowy his present precarious. Eking out an existence of sorts in a shabby seaside town somewhere in the south of England he finds employment flogging vacuum cleaners door to door. A colleague Roper decides to sign up for a stint as a steward on a cruise liner. He makes the mistake of asking Fanshawe to look out for his wife Sukie – a ‘sultry looking piece’. . Author Julian Maclaren-Ross was a vivid character of pre-war literary London a dandy and raconteur who held court in the drinking dens of Fitzrovia forever immortalized by novelist Anthony Powell as X Trapnell in A Dance to the Music of Time. Somehow in his chaotic life he managed to produce this great novel of Depression-era England originally published in 1947. As the storm clouds of World War Two gather across Europe and the Empire begins to crack Fanshawe plays out his doomed love affair in the tea rooms and dingy boarding houses of the rainswept coast against a backdrop of army recruitment posters and ever lengthening dole queues. Full of wit and downbeat charm this wonderful gem of British humour retains a timeless appeal.. This edition includes a fresh introduction by Maclaren-Ross' biographer Paul Willetts who published his study of the author Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia: the Bizarre Life of Writer Raconteur Soho Actor Julian Maclaren-Ross in 2014.. ‘In an atmosphere of debt sexual tension and mental unease the relationship stumbles towards its inevitable collapse. Read nearly forty years since his death his best work – this novel – retains an extraordinary sparkle: things borrowed from another time but still capable of startling us with their intensity’ – DJ Taylor novelist and author. ‘He possessed enviable powers of observation which enabled him to immortalize the sleazy allure of that now far-off world in his writing’ – Slightly Foxed blog. ‘Of Love and Hunger is a wonderful novel shot through with dark humour’ – JacquiWine blog. ‘A hidden gem of 1940’s British literature’ – Goodreads. Julian Maclaren-Ross was born in London in 1912. He was a novelist short story writer screenwriter and literary critic. He was married twice and had one son Alex. Although his lifestyle did not allow him to achieve prosperity he was much respected by his peers including Evelyn Waugh and Olivia Manning. As well as Powell’s X Trapnell he is thought to be the model for Prince Yakimov in Manning’s Balkan Trilogy. He died in 1964 aged only 52 of a heart attack probably caused by years of alcoholism amphetamine abuse and financial stress.