Patrick Hamilton's growing reputation over the past twenty to thirty years, said Nigel Jones, may be because we have moved closer to his inner world. I heard Nigel at an event at Brighton Waterstones, where he discussed the new edition of his life of Hamilton, Through a Glass Darkly, which I heartily recommend.
Nigel's major source, Hamilton's papers, then in the custody of the author's sister-in-law, give him a more detailed knowledge of Hamilton than anyone, and he is fascinating to hear. He defined Hamilton as a Brighton writer, one who flourished at a particular period, that of the end of empire, and one of the first to understand and describe fascism. His bizarre childhood, under the influence of his drunken, pretentious boor of a father, his desperate love-life, in pursuit of girls like Lily Connolly and Geraldine Fitzgerald, his alcoholism and sado-masochism, all contributed to his art, both the plays, successful in his lifetime, and the novels, less well received by his contemporaries, but now growing in stature.
Nigel mentioned Joe Wright's project to film Hangover Square, and he and an audience member had both seen the recent stage production at the Finborough in Earl's Court, which may go to the West End.
The papers are now in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Austin, Texas. where one of the audience had gone to consult them, and reported that Hamilton's shorthand was extremely difficult to decipher.
