The Slaves of Solitude is one of Hamilton's key novels, alongside Hangover Square and Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky. Published in 1947, it is set three or four years later, after America has joined the war but before D-Day. The London Blitz has forced Edna Roache and thousands out of the capital but, in her case, only as far Henley-on-Thames or, as Hamilton calls it, Thames Lockdon. Always a renter or lodger, she finds refuge Rosamund Tea Rooms, which has become a boarding house for the duration. There, she shares with the old, the fading, the spinsters like herself. A former schoolmistress, Roach is currently a publisher's reader, and so long as she commutes daily she is content. But when her employer says she can work from home, the problems of communal living, the daily grind of despondency, becomes overwhelming.
To start with, things are looking up. Edna has a friend, the ex-pat German, Vicki Kugelmann. She even has an admirer, Lieutenant Pike, an American GI. She also has an enemy of sorts, the bombastic bachelor Mr Thwaites, whose whims and eccentricities dominate at the Tea Rooms. Then Vicki moves in and slowly takes over. She charms Mr Thwaites, catches the eye of Lieutenant Pike, slowly but surely excluding Miss Roach.
The title is not only catchy, it is accurate. War and its retrictions has transformed a whole class of people from active participants in society to passive slaves of solitude. For such people it is not a case of cheer up and carry on; all they can do is endure. For Roach everything changes when she challenges the convention and stands up for herself. Then she is able to escape, returns to London, and comes back to life. At the end of the day The Slaves of Solitude is a comic novel, and an excellent example of what a comic novel can do.
