THE LOWLIFE (FABER EDITIONS) : 'TERRIFIC. PROPULSIVE, FUNNY AND TOUCHING.' - SEBASTIAN FAULKS PB

Never give up hope before the dogs have crossed the finishing-line. Harryboy Boas is a lowlife gambler. When hes not at the track, he lives in a Hackney boarding house, reading Zola, eating salt beef, pressing trousers and repressing wartime memories. But when a new family moves into the apartment downstairs, his life starts to unravel and Harryboy soon finds himself sinking into a murky East End underworld where violence, guilt and gangsters are the inevitable result for those who cannot pay their dues. A celebrated cult classic, The Lowlife brilliantly evokes post-war East London - dog tracks, sandwich shops, tenements, sex workers, newly arrived West Indians and Jews leaving for Finchley - all seen through the tragicomic eyes of Harryboy, our picaresque rogue hero suffering from existential burn-out in the shadow of the Holocaust (Iain Sinclair) and driven to bet, brag and beg to survive. Terrific. Sebastian Faulks