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‘She
had a tiny scar over the ridge of one eye . . . She knew
a dozen words in French; she had never learned to drive a
car; I measured her once, against a wall, kissing her for
every twelve inches and she was five feet, four and a half
inches, without her shoes on.’
Fifty years ago Alfred Hayes was regarded as one of the most
interesting and original American novelists, and he deserves
to be better known today. In Love is set in the
Manhattan bar scene of the forties and reads like a Edward
Hopper painting. A middle aged man tells a young woman
on an adjacent bar stool the story of his last love affair:
a relationship in the thoroughly modern sense, full of
misplaced lust and misunderstood emotion. He depicts the
boy of his tale as moody and evasive, the girl as even
worse. It was a mostly erratic affair, downbeat, dysfunctional
and on the brink of sinking without a trace – until
an unscrupulous millionaire intervened. The ensuing turmoil
will be recognisable to anyone who has fallen into – and
then out of – a relationship. In
Love is as much
an indictment of love as an elegy to it, an examination
of heartbreak rather than the heart itself.
‘Flawless, a perfectly cut gem.’ – Frederic
Raphael
'In Love is strange, unsettling, cynical and
sad. It is a masterpiece.' – The Times,
November 2007
'[A] noirish masterpiece which combines a plot that
prefigures Indecent Proposal with the desolate milieu
of an Edward Hopper painting.' – The Guardian, October
2007
‘A little masterpiece.’ – Elizabeth
Bowen
‘Besides being a technical tour de force, In Love is literature;
it is a work of art.’ –
Julien Maclaren Ross
‘A complete success . . . An honest, witty and moving study
of an affair.’ – Antonia White
‘A brilliantly reduced masterpiece.’ – The
Independent
‘A very remarkable novel . . . Quite unforgettable.’ – John
Lehman
‘Hayes has done for bruised men what Jean Rhys
does for bruised women, and they both write heartbreakingly
beautiful sentences.’ – Paul Bailey
ALFRED HAYES (1911 – 1985) was born in London.
He grew up and went to school in New York where he later
worked for a time as a newspaperman, magazine writer
and radio hack. After joining the army in 1943 he served
with the US forces in Italy. While in Rome he worked
with Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini on the film
Paisán (1946).
He returned to the United States in 1945 to work in
Hollywood. His output was prolific
including six more novels, screenplays and adaptions
for television.
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