Book set in London (louche living in the Swinging 60s)

25th January 2014

Three Brothers by Peter Ackroyd, book set in London.

Transport yourself back to London of the 1960s in the capable hands of author Peter Ackroyd. This is the story of three brothers, Harry, Daniel and Sam who are abandoned by their Mother in their early years and are dragged up by their Father, who essentially absents himself from home, both physically and emotionally, by becoming a lorry driver.

As they mature into adult young men, each has his story to tell, and each dovetails with the lives of other Londoners – and it is these patterns of association linking the people of the city that Ackroyd revisits over and over again. A hugely populated city, yet a very small stage, where lives diverge, cross and come together alarmingly frequently. And all the while the non tangible, ethereal ghosts of historical footsteps patter around the prose. The ghosts of past lives serve to threaten or to reassure as life continues. People have to make the best of their lives, from the larger than life characters to those who keep the wheels of the city turning. His prose is rich in imagery and pathos.

This is a story set in the real life London of Harold Wilson, Gin and Its, Tizer, Christine Keeler, The Kray Twins and Babycham and the notorious landlord Peter Rachman, who exploited and terrorised his tenants. And there is a character in the book who can only be based on this notoriously sadistic and cruel real-life person. Generally, a thinly drawn veil separates the fictional characters from the real-life characters who populated London in the Swinging 60s. Needless to say it wasn’t all about fashionable Carnaby Street, it was also grim reality in the slums. Much of London was still derelict and run down, recovering from WW2 and as the flyleaf on our copy states, Acroyd sets out his well crafted story again the backdrop of London, ‘from bustling, cut-throat Fleet Street to hallowed London publishing houses, from the wealth and corruption of Chelsea to the smoky shadows of Limehouse and Hackney, this is an exploration of the city, peering down its streets, riding on its underground, and drinking in its pubs and clubs.’

This is certainly a work of fiction that will bring the era of the Swinging (and not so Swinging 60s) in London to crisp and, at times, unflattering life.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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