Book description
'West Kensington - grey area of rot, and caretaking, and
cat-slinking basements. West Kensington - drab asylum for the driven
and cast-off genteel!' Patrick Hamilton was acutely conscious that his
third novel (first published in 1928) was longer and 'much grimmer'
than his previous and well-received productions. Twopence Coloured is
the story of 19-year-old Jackie Mortimer, who leaves Hove in search of
a life on the London stage, only to become entangled in 'provincial
theatre' and complex affairs of the heart with two brothers, Richard
and Charles Gissing. The novel, unavailable for many years, is a
gimlet-eyed portrait of the theatrical vocation, and fully exhibits
Hamilton's celebrated gift for conjuring London - the 'vast, thronged,
unknown, hooting, electric-lit, dark-rumbling metropolis.
