a secondary character

A Secondary Character by Montague Haltrecht (Andre Deutsch, 1965)

An odd, slight, generally unappealing novel.

Christopher, our (anti-) hero, is a young homosexual man, who has been raised in the most repressive and thwarting conditions of post-war England.  His mother is a monster of misguided propriety and hate and fear, and tries to control every aspect of her son’s life in fear that he might act naturally and embarrass her.  Shortly after Christopher manages to move out of his parents’ suburban prison into a rooming house in London, his mother kills herself and leaves Christopher a small legacy.  He takes the money and runs to a small town on the Mediterranean where he begins a tortured relationship with Leon, a manipulative and abusive gay man.  They live together unhappily, and then Leon bolts, owing Christopher lots of money.  Christopher picks up a local boy, beats him to death, then kills himself by drowning in the sea.

Nothing in this book quite works.  The most engaging character is the monstrous mother, but she is dispatched early on, and the book suffers from her absence.  A curious but unsuccessful book.  Jonah and his Mother, Haltrecht’s first book, is superior in just about every way.

19th September 1955: Stripped to the waist, Montague Haltrecht rehearses his piece for the Edinburgh Festival with Rod Robertson. Original Publication: Picture Post – 7989 – Bohemians Of The Royal Mile – pub. 1955 (Photo by Malcolm Dunbar/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)