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Night and the City
by
Harry Fabian has a dream to become the top wrestling promoter in London, but he has a problem: he needs money. Not too much -- only one hundred quid -- but it might as well be a million because he needs the money by the end of the week. What's more, it is the height of the 1930s Depression, he lives in London's Soho, he makes money from selling his girlfriend to men, and t
...more
Paperback, 382 pages
Published
November 1st 2001
by iBooks
(first published 1938)
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Start your review of Night and the City

”Every film he had ever seen, and every book he had ever read, rushed together in his brain to form one blazing and magnificent composite, in which he, Fabian, fantastically enlarged, fantastically dressed, leaned backwards in a wild photomontage of champagne bubbles, limousines, diamonds, galloping horses, baize tables, and beautiful women; all whirling and weaving in a deluge of white and yellow chips, and large bank notes; an eternal reduplication of breasts and legs and every conceivable sha
...more

“Many commercial gentlemen are called ‘businessmen’ until they are found out; then they are described as ‘crooks.’”
Look up chump—or for that matter, mug-- in the dictionary and you might see Harry Fabian’s face. A man with a plan, you might call him. Always has something up his sleeve. Wrestling racket? A means to get ahead, staying in front of the other mugs…A hustler on the move…
Within this novel, even the title takes on a bit of symbolism and significance. Night is the time when deals are ma ...more
Look up chump—or for that matter, mug-- in the dictionary and you might see Harry Fabian’s face. A man with a plan, you might call him. Always has something up his sleeve. Wrestling racket? A means to get ahead, staying in front of the other mugs…A hustler on the move…
Within this novel, even the title takes on a bit of symbolism and significance. Night is the time when deals are ma ...more

A spectacularly bleak and misanthropic novel of London low life just before WW2 (pimps, prostitutes, wheeler dealers, scammers, blackmailers) set among nightclubs and the wrestling world, both of which the author knew personally. Compellingly horrible---grubs writhing in an immense night, as Rupert Brooke said of Webster, with very little offered in the way of hope for the species, just human selfishness, self-delusion, self-harm and self-indulgence on full sordid display in all their grime. A g
...more

Dec 24, 2008
David
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
noir,
deserves-a-comeback
This terrific noir of 1930’s London was a revelation, even though I had seen the fine 1950 movie w/ Richard Widmark, I knew that things would be more vicious and degenerate than the movie. But the real splendor of the novel is the prose, or should I say the dialogue – this would make a fabulous audiobook for a skilled actor or troupe. The prose is a clamor of London voices, high and low, and at the middle of this Dickensian hubbub is one of the most magnificent scoundrels ever written, the grand
...more

“The darkness...seeped down between the street lamps, poured into basements, and lay deep and stagnant under the porches and the arches of the back streets...Night closed down upon the city.”
And here’s Harry Fabian, a ponce on the prowl in “the shifting frontier between the slough of small business and the quagmire of the underworld.” Harry is a no-hoper, a fantasist who makes out that he’s a wide boy but isn’t. Things are going to end badly for Harry...but that’s par for the course in Kersh’s s ...more
And here’s Harry Fabian, a ponce on the prowl in “the shifting frontier between the slough of small business and the quagmire of the underworld.” Harry is a no-hoper, a fantasist who makes out that he’s a wide boy but isn’t. Things are going to end badly for Harry...but that’s par for the course in Kersh’s s ...more

Blimey, this was good!
My acquaintance with Gerald Kersh's writing began a few years ago, when I read a few short stories in some 1960s fantasy anthologies. I also got a recommendation for Fowler's End, but wasn't really in the mood to read it at the time. Finally, I got a short story anthology as well as the novel Prelude to a Certain Midnight, both of which I thought were absolutely great, and the novel in particular I devoured and reviewed rather enthusiastically last year. Then I went and got ...more
My acquaintance with Gerald Kersh's writing began a few years ago, when I read a few short stories in some 1960s fantasy anthologies. I also got a recommendation for Fowler's End, but wasn't really in the mood to read it at the time. Finally, I got a short story anthology as well as the novel Prelude to a Certain Midnight, both of which I thought were absolutely great, and the novel in particular I devoured and reviewed rather enthusiastically last year. Then I went and got ...more

This is a novel well worth reading, for its strengths are immense, as Kersh delves not so much into the underworld, as the book cover would have had me believe, as the depths of the minds and souls of hustlers, specifically Harry Fabian, who is the fully realized and totally repugnant star of this story. Harry is a delusional fool who abuses the trust of others, including that of the woman he purportedly loves, and his ambition drives the story. But he's obviously a loser from the start, and it'
...more

An absolutely astonishing foray into the seedy underbelly of pre-war London. Elevated miles beyond the average pulp noir fair by the elegant prose stylings of Gerald Kersh that somehow manage to come off as far more poetic than purple.
It is to my detriment that I'd never picked up this novel before. I wish I'd been reading it for years. The film version of the book, excellent in its own right, distills much of the gritty feel into a cogent, brisk plot. The novel itself is quite a different expe ...more
It is to my detriment that I'd never picked up this novel before. I wish I'd been reading it for years. The film version of the book, excellent in its own right, distills much of the gritty feel into a cogent, brisk plot. The novel itself is quite a different expe ...more

"Night and the City" is pretty amazing on different levels. On one end I don't think its a great novel, but as a portrait of a time, place, and a certain type of character its totally ace. Written in 1938 and mostly taking place in Soho London it is a snapshot of a group of hustlers trying to stay above the water-line of sorts.
The main character is Harry Fabian, who for god knows, should be a major iconic fiction figure. But alas, what we have here is a pimp who lives his life in a certain amou ...more
The main character is Harry Fabian, who for god knows, should be a major iconic fiction figure. But alas, what we have here is a pimp who lives his life in a certain amou ...more

Gerald Kersh’s brilliant 1938 novel Night and the City is ‘a book I wish I’d written’, Rich and darkly beautiful. Cruel and funny. There’s a tidy introduction from John King in this edition, too.
The blurb: Harry Fabian is a ponce, a Flash Harry in an expensive suit, a cockney wide boy who adopts American tones and talks big, yet will never make it to the top. He operates in the Soho of the 1930s, a metropolitan tangle of dodgy geezers, prostitutes, spivs and strong-arm men. Twice filmed, Night a ...more
The blurb: Harry Fabian is a ponce, a Flash Harry in an expensive suit, a cockney wide boy who adopts American tones and talks big, yet will never make it to the top. He operates in the Soho of the 1930s, a metropolitan tangle of dodgy geezers, prostitutes, spivs and strong-arm men. Twice filmed, Night a ...more

Gerald Kersh is someone I'd wanted to read for a while. Harlan Ellison and Michael Moorcock were and are both fans, and the author seems to be one of those, like Poe or Dickens, who managed a hack's volume, but also kept a remarkable quality.

He also looked natty as fuck, let's face it.
Night and the City is a 1938 novel that spawned a classic noir film, which is now likely better known than its source material. Broadly, it concerns a spiv, Harry Fabian who dreams big and is in eternal pursuit o ...more

He also looked natty as fuck, let's face it.
Night and the City is a 1938 novel that spawned a classic noir film, which is now likely better known than its source material. Broadly, it concerns a spiv, Harry Fabian who dreams big and is in eternal pursuit o ...more

Quite some time ago, I saw a movie with the same title, starring Richard Widmark, and it's considered a "noir" classic. Some quick and dirty internet searches divulge that the movie didn't follow the book very closely, and that the director never read the book.
My memory of the film is dim now. But I can say that both the book and the film feature a low-life weasel named Harry Fabian, who is desperate for money so that he can become a wrestling promoter in 1930's London. In the book, Fabian is l ...more
My memory of the film is dim now. But I can say that both the book and the film feature a low-life weasel named Harry Fabian, who is desperate for money so that he can become a wrestling promoter in 1930's London. In the book, Fabian is l ...more

Dec 30, 2010
Moloch
rated it
it was ok
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Moloch by:
Articolo Corsera
Più di dieci anni: tanto ha dovuto aspettare questo libro dal momento in cui ne lessi una recensione sul Corriere della Sera (maggio 2003) a quello in cui finalmente l'ho preso dallo scaffale e letto (ottobre 2013). Al punto che ormai questa edizione che ho è fuori commercio.
Londra, 1938. Harry Fabian è un delinquentello di mezza tacca, sempre alla ricerca di modi per far soldi che poi puntualmente scialacqua subito in alcol, scommesse, bei vestiti e spesucce varie, vive sfruttando i guadagni de ...more
Londra, 1938. Harry Fabian è un delinquentello di mezza tacca, sempre alla ricerca di modi per far soldi che poi puntualmente scialacqua subito in alcol, scommesse, bei vestiti e spesucce varie, vive sfruttando i guadagni de ...more

This terrific noir of 1930’s London was a revelation, even though I had seen the fine 1950 movie w/ Richard Widmark, I knew that things would be more vicious and degenerate than the movie. But the real splendor of the novel is the prose, or should I say the dialogue – this would make a fabulous audiobook for a skilled actor or troupe. The prose is a clamor of London voices, high and low, and at the middle of this Dickensian hubbub is one of the most magnificent scoundrels ever written, the grand
...more

This would be five stars except that Kersh doesn't actually seem to be able to construct a plot. Great characters and dialogue, but a bit interminable. The film is just about my favourite noir of them all and it manages to streamline this unruly subject matter most effectively.
...more

Oct 18, 2019
Michael Sullivan
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
weird-fiction-1940-1980
The film lock stock and two smoking barrels must have been heavily influenced by this book.

A most interesting novel highlighting the underbelly of London. Set in the months before George VI's coronation(1936), we see a different sort of life> The characters here are what would be considered lower class, in the mores of the time and their actions. But some were just hard working folks trying to survive the best way they could.
Harry Fabian is the unquestioned star of the book, a little man with delusions of grandeur that had the intelligence and drive to make something of himself. If he ...more
Harry Fabian is the unquestioned star of the book, a little man with delusions of grandeur that had the intelligence and drive to make something of himself. If he ...more

Sometimes you have to wonder at American reviewers who claim the States produced a crop of hard boiled writers in the 1930s; compared to the British most of them were as hard boiled as an old dish cloth. Forget Richard Widmark's happy go lucky rogue in Jules Dassin's film adaptation of Kersh's novel. Fabian is utterly heartless, and I mean worse than that. If he has a redeeming feature it might be that he seems unaware of how others take advantage of him. The others include his girlfriend Zoe, w
...more

Excellent for its glimpse into the world of con men, pimps, wrestlers, escorts, club-owners, businessmen and criminals in London between the wars. Soaked with colour and life, of a particularly vile kind. Some of the asides of the author are a bit over the top but the sharp characterization and dialog is unbeatable.

recommened by william gibson in his goodreads interview
...more
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Gerald Kersh was born in Teddington-on-Thames, near London, and, like so many writers, quit school to take on a series of jobs -- salesman, baker, fish-and-chips cook, nightclub bouncer, freelance newspaper reporter and at the same time was writing his first two novels.
In 1937, his third published novel, Night and the City, hurled him into the front ranks of young British writers. Twenty novels la ...more
In 1937, his third published novel, Night and the City, hurled him into the front ranks of young British writers. Twenty novels la ...more
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