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4.44 AVERAGE
4.44 AVERAGE
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
"...but a lowlife is a lowlife"
i haven't heard of this book or alexander baron before, and now i'll definitely check out his other works.
at the start of the book, i waited and wanted for harryboy to want more and to change, but with each chapter i understood that it was my view of him that was the problem. harryboy was completely and utterly himself until the last page and, in the end, i accepted that.
loved this book and the atmosphere of baron's london.
thank you netgalley and faber and faber ltd for an opportunity to read this classic.
dark
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I might not be a gambler, but if I had to bet, I’d bet this is the kind of book that only gets better each time you read it.
Reading The Lowlife, you don’t just feel like you’re invited to take a look inside Harryboy Boas’s mind. No, you feel like you’re dumped right in there, in the thick of all the real human moral ambiguities and complex, intertwined emotions, alongside Harryboy, who crudely reflects - through his dog-race gambling and his relationships with others - not just the price of surviving a war, but also misery, ecstasy, numbness, and even some form of generosity. It’s all shoved right in your face, and into the post-war potpourri that is 1960s East London. Together, you begin to bum your way out of (or maybe really just around) the mess that is “the lowlife”.
I was a little afraid I wouldn’t be able to fully grasp the book or empathise with the narrator, since we seemingly have very little in common, me being a woman in my late 20s, never having had to survive a war, not having resided in London or the UK, and not being a gambler. But luckily, I found I was so very, very wrong to think this. Everyone who enjoys the magic of reading masterfully crafted characters is no doubt going to enjoy this read!
I was provided an eARC by NetGalley and the publisher Faber and Faber Ltd ahead of the release of this new edition in exchange for an honest review of the book.
Update: I have now also listened to the audiobook narrated by Phil Davis, who really does Harryboy justice and brings him even more to life than what he already is on the pages!
Reading The Lowlife, you don’t just feel like you’re invited to take a look inside Harryboy Boas’s mind. No, you feel like you’re dumped right in there, in the thick of all the real human moral ambiguities and complex, intertwined emotions, alongside Harryboy, who crudely reflects - through his dog-race gambling and his relationships with others - not just the price of surviving a war, but also misery, ecstasy, numbness, and even some form of generosity. It’s all shoved right in your face, and into the post-war potpourri that is 1960s East London. Together, you begin to bum your way out of (or maybe really just around) the mess that is “the lowlife”.
I was a little afraid I wouldn’t be able to fully grasp the book or empathise with the narrator, since we seemingly have very little in common, me being a woman in my late 20s, never having had to survive a war, not having resided in London or the UK, and not being a gambler. But luckily, I found I was so very, very wrong to think this. Everyone who enjoys the magic of reading masterfully crafted characters is no doubt going to enjoy this read!
I was provided an eARC by NetGalley and the publisher Faber and Faber Ltd ahead of the release of this new edition in exchange for an honest review of the book.
Update: I have now also listened to the audiobook narrated by Phil Davis, who really does Harryboy justice and brings him even more to life than what he already is on the pages!
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Racism, Violence
Moderate: Misogyny, Medical content, Classism
Minor: War
NetGalley Arc
A strangely charming novel about Harry boas, as he slowly ruins his life with idleness, drinking and gambling. You are rooting for him all the while seeing him gamble away his life. If fits well with the other books in the faber series.
A strangely charming novel about Harry boas, as he slowly ruins his life with idleness, drinking and gambling. You are rooting for him all the while seeing him gamble away his life. If fits well with the other books in the faber series.
Harryboy Boas is a man of habits. He likes a bet, a smoke, and a bit of solitude—ideally all at once. Living in a cluttered flat in 1960s Hackney, he keeps the world at arm’s length. He’s no great villain, nor a model citizen—just someone trying to live quietly and on his own terms. Mostly.
This is a terrific character piece, equal parts funny and sad, with a sharp eye on the kinds of lives that don’t usually make the papers. Baron writes with economy, compassion, and sage wit: “A childhood is one long rearguard action of naked free will against society.”
Harryboy, in all his contradictions, is given full humanity. He doesn’t want much, just to be left alone to gamble, read, and potter about—“reading on a full belly is the peak of human happiness“ - but life won’t quite let him be. The arrival of a new family in his boarding house, and the presence of a young boy who latches onto him, disrupts his carefully kept detachment.
There’s a lot going on here under the surface: the pull between community and isolation, the tension between Harryboy’s Jewish heritage and his chosen identity, and the slow creep of change in a working-class corner of London. But Baron never labours the point. He just shows people as they are—funny, worn down, irritable, kind in spite of themselves.
It’s not a book that builds to some grand transformation—Harryboy doesn’t suddenly turn saintly—but it leaves a mark. A quiet, well-observed novel that understands how loneliness is padded out with routines, and how, sometimes, that loneliness is interrupted in ways you didn’t ask for but maybe needed.
I’ve loved every Alexander Baron book I’ve read, and this was no exception. A true gem.
This is a terrific character piece, equal parts funny and sad, with a sharp eye on the kinds of lives that don’t usually make the papers. Baron writes with economy, compassion, and sage wit: “A childhood is one long rearguard action of naked free will against society.”
Harryboy, in all his contradictions, is given full humanity. He doesn’t want much, just to be left alone to gamble, read, and potter about—“reading on a full belly is the peak of human happiness“ - but life won’t quite let him be. The arrival of a new family in his boarding house, and the presence of a young boy who latches onto him, disrupts his carefully kept detachment.
There’s a lot going on here under the surface: the pull between community and isolation, the tension between Harryboy’s Jewish heritage and his chosen identity, and the slow creep of change in a working-class corner of London. But Baron never labours the point. He just shows people as they are—funny, worn down, irritable, kind in spite of themselves.
It’s not a book that builds to some grand transformation—Harryboy doesn’t suddenly turn saintly—but it leaves a mark. A quiet, well-observed novel that understands how loneliness is padded out with routines, and how, sometimes, that loneliness is interrupted in ways you didn’t ask for but maybe needed.
I’ve loved every Alexander Baron book I’ve read, and this was no exception. A true gem.
Neat little Zola meets Runyon in the ever transitioning East End.
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes