Love, Leda

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You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. This novel is a record of the queer bohemian, underground world at the time in which Hyatt was writing in, and which Hyatt himself circulated in and out of. While Leda should not be read as a fully autobiographical work, Hyatt himself grew up poor and working class, and had a violent relationship with his father, which draws many close parallels with this novel. Having moved to Lancashire with his then boyfriend, Atom, in the mid- to late 60s, he continued writing without much success and eventually killed himself just outside Blackburn in 1972, after the end of his relationship led to a prolonged period of crisis. Seller has stated it will dispatch the item within 1 working day upon receipt of cleared payment - opens in a new window or tab .

Usually a frequenter of the hip coffee bar scene of that era, here Leda takes him to a Lyon’s Corner House and propositions him over a cup of appropriately bittersweet coffee. In the end, Love, Leda is a poet’s novel with its far-flung lyricism and its surprises of precision and revelation. Along the way, he spends some comfortable nights at the home of his friend, Thomas, whose flat he enters through an open window and whose clothes he shares liberally, who gives him money and remonstrates with him on his lifestyle choices, effectively acting as the moral conscience of the times. It's hilarious how indifferently he tends to them while they consume enormous amounts of sugar and cause havoc. Thus, as a chronicle of what life was like in bohemian '60's Soho London, and its glimpse into the life of an unapologetic and unashamed bisexual, lends it far greater significance than it might otherwise merit on purely literary grounds.Trysts in the rubble of a bombsite follow hours spent in bedsits with near strangers, as Leda is forced to find intimacy in unusual places. He committed suicide at the very early age of 32 and left behind a legacy of unpublished manuscripts and papers. It was an attempt to unstuff the class-bound, moralising culture that had choked British life since the Victorian era, and free people to think, and act, for themselves. I cry because I can't understand it and I am constantly in dreams that somehow I hope time will not cure.

Perhaps Love, Leda offers us more value as a cultural document rather than a novel on its own terms, but through its candid exploration of a world truly in the past Hyatt offers us an open and frank account of gay life that is years ahead of its time.At best it is a source of pleasure, excitement, transgression; sometimes it is merely a curious character trait, a peccadillo. He pushes the button and a loud riff sound, like jazz comes bellowing out from all sides of this two-roomed flat. So good, a really special read - the narrative is aggressively poetic and and the descriptions of London from the 60s ring so familiar.