Returning to Kephalonia and Patrick Hamilton

I picked this off the shelves because Patrick Hamilton holds many memories for me: I selected his Hangover Square from a Kephalonian holiday apartment shelf many years ago, flung myself into the azure ocean on a lilo and spent hours drifting and reading. This year, I returned to both: the author and the apartment.

Hangover Square is a fantastic novel about a man with schizophrenia and alcoholism. It is very clever and yet funny. Unfortunately, I got on with the Midnight Bell rather less well; I found the first story, about a barman called Bob, rather too simplistic and a bit frustrating. The following stories in the trilogy, about Jenny, the prostitute Bob falls in love with, and Ella, a barmaid who is in love with Bob himself, were much more self aware and better portraits.

The (now slightly dampened; have you ever tried reading on a lilo?) copy of Hangover Square that I read all those years ago is still in the apartment in Kephalonia. Here is a smug picture of the sea that I read it in: