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The Angel and the Cuckoo
Paul Auster, Ian McEwan and Don DeLillo all know that the city is a place of absurdity, and each of them have played with the form of their novels to accentuate and clarify the absurdities that city-dwellers face on a daily basis. Yet before any of them had their first novel published Gerald Kersh had written his last masterpiece The Angel And The Cuckoo. This is a novel of London that cuts back and forth in time through the Depression years between the two World Wars, following artists, criminals, lovers, singers, conmen, film producers, writers and other lowlifes as they each follow their singular obsessions. There are three love stories, all connected by Steve Zobrany, proprietor of The Angel And The Cuckoo, a caf in a hidden courtyard at one end of Carnaby Street. Through Zobrany we meet film producer Gza Cseh, the sublime Alma, artist without an art Tom Henceforth, omnipotent criminal mastermind Perp, and many others. Kersh shows that each of them carries the seeds of corruption, and what they do with these desires will define them for the rest of their lives. All this, and the book is as funny as hell.
- GenresFiction
333 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1966
1 person is currently reading
62 people want to read
About the author
Gerald Kersh
109 books62 followersGerald 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 later Kersh created his personal masterpiece, Fowler's End, regarded by many as one of the outstanding novels of the century. He also, throughout his long career, wrote more than 400 short stories and over 1,000 articles.
Once a professional wrestler, Kersh also fought with the Coldstream Guards in World War II. His account of infantry training They Die With Their Boots Clean (1941), became an instant best-seller during that war.
After traveling over much of the world, he became an American citizen, living quietly in Cragsmoor, in a remote section of the Shawangunk Mountains in New York State. He died in Kingston, NY, in 1968.
(Biography compiled from "Nightmares & Damnations" and Fantastic Fiction.)
In 1937, his third published novel, Night and the City, hurled him into the front ranks of young British writers. Twenty novels later Kersh created his personal masterpiece, Fowler's End, regarded by many as one of the outstanding novels of the century. He also, throughout his long career, wrote more than 400 short stories and over 1,000 articles.
Once a professional wrestler, Kersh also fought with the Coldstream Guards in World War II. His account of infantry training They Die With Their Boots Clean (1941), became an instant best-seller during that war.
After traveling over much of the world, he became an American citizen, living quietly in Cragsmoor, in a remote section of the Shawangunk Mountains in New York State. He died in Kingston, NY, in 1968.
(Biography compiled from "Nightmares & Damnations" and Fantastic Fiction.)
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April 26, 2019A superb novel by the criminally forgotten Gerald Kersh. I can't understand why he's so comprehensively ignored given I live in a world where people still DH "kill me now" Lawrence.
This is a wonderful book, a huge rambling shaggy-dog story about London lowlifes telling each other lies and giving each other a hand. It's laugh-out-loud funny at points, often sour but never bitter, often wonderfully warm. Includes the most wonderful murder, treated with nonchalance, and a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Shit that is simultaneously wildly exaggerated and excoriatingly real.
Talking of wild exaggeration, we get pages and pages of people telling stories that turn out not to be true, so you think, "hang on, why am I reading about a raconteur telling me lies?" and then you remember this is a novel and you have literally paid money for a raconteur to tell you lies, so what's your problem.
Also includes some magnificently filthy music hall type songs, and much that is massively offensive, although in a way that I think it would be hard to take actual offence at because it's so Rabelaisian and grotesque. Acute observation, wonderful turn of phrase,. Probably not everyone's cup of tea, granted, but I'm trying to get as many of his books as I can get my mitts on.
This is a wonderful book, a huge rambling shaggy-dog story about London lowlifes telling each other lies and giving each other a hand. It's laugh-out-loud funny at points, often sour but never bitter, often wonderfully warm. Includes the most wonderful murder, treated with nonchalance, and a Portrait of the Artist as a Young Shit that is simultaneously wildly exaggerated and excoriatingly real.
Talking of wild exaggeration, we get pages and pages of people telling stories that turn out not to be true, so you think, "hang on, why am I reading about a raconteur telling me lies?" and then you remember this is a novel and you have literally paid money for a raconteur to tell you lies, so what's your problem.
Also includes some magnificently filthy music hall type songs, and much that is massively offensive, although in a way that I think it would be hard to take actual offence at because it's so Rabelaisian and grotesque. Acute observation, wonderful turn of phrase,. Probably not everyone's cup of tea, granted, but I'm trying to get as many of his books as I can get my mitts on.
August 25, 2013
The Angel and the Cuckoo by Gerald Kersh
My first book by Gerald Kersh. This edition of The Angel and the Cuckoo is published by London Books who, as you may well know, are a hallmark of quality writing. London Books describes itself as "an independent publisher which aims to bring old and new fiction together in a tradition that is original in its subject matter, style and social concerns. We believe that the marginalised fiction of the past can be as relevant and exciting today as when it was first published, and our classic reprints will reflect the language and politics of tougher eras, while our new fiction will focus on emerging authors with something to say and a novel way of getting their messages across."
My appetite was well and truly whetted by Paul Duncan's informative introduction. It appears that many of Gerald Kersh's stories feature the grotesque and the bizarre, and frequently include characters from the fringes. This London novel travels through the 1930s depression, and the two World Wars, and it following artists, criminals, lovers, singers, conmen, film producers, writers and other lowlifes as they each follow their singular obsessions.
Steve Zobrany is the owner of The Angel And The Cuckoo café off Carnaby Street. Through Zobrany we meet the book's other key characters: the film producer Gèza Cseh, Alma Zobrany (Steve's wife), Tom Henceforth (a performance artist of sorts), and most memorably Perp the omnipotent criminal mastermind. To say any more is to ruin the book's pleasure, suffice to say that it is an imaginative and kaleidoscopic ride through a half imagined, half remembered London that is both plausible and pleasingly surreal.
In his day, Gerald Kersh was a best selling author who, at one point, had four books in the top ten best selling list. I can quite see why. I've already started on my second Kersh (Fowler's End). I suspect it's the beginning of another literary love affair.
My first book by Gerald Kersh. This edition of The Angel and the Cuckoo is published by London Books who, as you may well know, are a hallmark of quality writing. London Books describes itself as "an independent publisher which aims to bring old and new fiction together in a tradition that is original in its subject matter, style and social concerns. We believe that the marginalised fiction of the past can be as relevant and exciting today as when it was first published, and our classic reprints will reflect the language and politics of tougher eras, while our new fiction will focus on emerging authors with something to say and a novel way of getting their messages across."
My appetite was well and truly whetted by Paul Duncan's informative introduction. It appears that many of Gerald Kersh's stories feature the grotesque and the bizarre, and frequently include characters from the fringes. This London novel travels through the 1930s depression, and the two World Wars, and it following artists, criminals, lovers, singers, conmen, film producers, writers and other lowlifes as they each follow their singular obsessions.
Steve Zobrany is the owner of The Angel And The Cuckoo café off Carnaby Street. Through Zobrany we meet the book's other key characters: the film producer Gèza Cseh, Alma Zobrany (Steve's wife), Tom Henceforth (a performance artist of sorts), and most memorably Perp the omnipotent criminal mastermind. To say any more is to ruin the book's pleasure, suffice to say that it is an imaginative and kaleidoscopic ride through a half imagined, half remembered London that is both plausible and pleasingly surreal.
In his day, Gerald Kersh was a best selling author who, at one point, had four books in the top ten best selling list. I can quite see why. I've already started on my second Kersh (Fowler's End). I suspect it's the beginning of another literary love affair.
December 31, 2024
Day and the city.
This novel feels like the yang to Fowler’s End’s yin. In that novel, Daniel, an innocent in Enfield (probably a stand in for Kersh), works for the monstrous Sam Yudenov, running a fleapit cinema and inventing the ill-favoured cabbage burger, whereas in The Angel and the Cuckoo, a put upon Hungarian (possibly a stand in for Kersh) runs a café in Carnaby St, not a fashionable enclave in 1912. In Fowler’s, a Greek family conspire against Sam; in Angel, a Croatian family conspire against Steve/István, the café owner, Both books contain conmen best friends who try to rip off the protagonist. The difference between Kersh’s two similar novels is nine years and 3000 miles - by the time this novel was published, Kersh was an expat in New York, looking back at his life in London, rather than immersed in it and the book has a certain nostalgia for the times before both world wars. But whereas Fowler’s End stuck to the Ponders End environs, Kersh opens up his novel to take in the stories of Tom Henceforth and Perp the gangster, from the slums of Brighton to the posh hotels of Manchester to the stately homes of Sussex. Steve is both angel, kind and friendly to the inhabitants of Masham Court, and cuckoo, out of place in London.
Unlike Kersh’s novels published in the 1940s, The Angel And The Cuckoo was a flop, and I can see why this backwards-looking book wasn’t popular in 1966, the year Wide Sargasso Sea, Valley Of The Dolls, and The Crying of Lot 49 were also published. Anyone nostalgic for between-the-wars would want something cosy about the old east end where everyone was poor but happy, rather than gangsters and grotesquerie.
This novel feels like the yang to Fowler’s End’s yin. In that novel, Daniel, an innocent in Enfield (probably a stand in for Kersh), works for the monstrous Sam Yudenov, running a fleapit cinema and inventing the ill-favoured cabbage burger, whereas in The Angel and the Cuckoo, a put upon Hungarian (possibly a stand in for Kersh) runs a café in Carnaby St, not a fashionable enclave in 1912. In Fowler’s, a Greek family conspire against Sam; in Angel, a Croatian family conspire against Steve/István, the café owner, Both books contain conmen best friends who try to rip off the protagonist. The difference between Kersh’s two similar novels is nine years and 3000 miles - by the time this novel was published, Kersh was an expat in New York, looking back at his life in London, rather than immersed in it and the book has a certain nostalgia for the times before both world wars. But whereas Fowler’s End stuck to the Ponders End environs, Kersh opens up his novel to take in the stories of Tom Henceforth and Perp the gangster, from the slums of Brighton to the posh hotels of Manchester to the stately homes of Sussex. Steve is both angel, kind and friendly to the inhabitants of Masham Court, and cuckoo, out of place in London.
Unlike Kersh’s novels published in the 1940s, The Angel And The Cuckoo was a flop, and I can see why this backwards-looking book wasn’t popular in 1966, the year Wide Sargasso Sea, Valley Of The Dolls, and The Crying of Lot 49 were also published. Anyone nostalgic for between-the-wars would want something cosy about the old east end where everyone was poor but happy, rather than gangsters and grotesquerie.
May 5, 2016
Brilliant. Who can fail to be charmed by a book in which one character pronounces the name Henceforth as "Anusfart"?
Kersh seems a little unfocused sometimes, like he was maybe a little manic. One character takes precedence before something else catches Kersh's eye and he'll be off and telling us a different story. For all that though it holds together extremely well. You care about everyone in this book from good natured Steve Zobrany, proprietor of the Angel and the Cuckoo cafe, around whom everything hangs to Gaza Cseh the little Napoleon who cheats and lies his way to Hollywood.
Tom Henceforth, the artists apprentice turned novelist who doesn't write is, on the surface of it, a thoroughly unpleasant chap but like most of the characters in the book you can't help liking him.
It also contains a superbly throwaway murder scene, lazy, almost somnambulant much like the killer.
It's funny and sad and sadly funny and that's just how I like it.
As an aside, I was pleased to see the author Guy Boothby get a mention in the sequence where Tom Henceforth tries to convince Geza to make a film star out of Era Moon
Kersh seems a little unfocused sometimes, like he was maybe a little manic. One character takes precedence before something else catches Kersh's eye and he'll be off and telling us a different story. For all that though it holds together extremely well. You care about everyone in this book from good natured Steve Zobrany, proprietor of the Angel and the Cuckoo cafe, around whom everything hangs to Gaza Cseh the little Napoleon who cheats and lies his way to Hollywood.
Tom Henceforth, the artists apprentice turned novelist who doesn't write is, on the surface of it, a thoroughly unpleasant chap but like most of the characters in the book you can't help liking him.
It also contains a superbly throwaway murder scene, lazy, almost somnambulant much like the killer.
It's funny and sad and sadly funny and that's just how I like it.
As an aside, I was pleased to see the author Guy Boothby get a mention in the sequence where Tom Henceforth tries to convince Geza to make a film star out of Era Moon
March 19, 2018
It's long and rambling. It's dilatory and fascinating. It's enthralling and maddening. It's Gerald Kersh, but only more so.
My third Kersh novel, and they are all of a piece. The man can write-humorously, evocatively-but he couldn't or wouldn't plot his way out of a paper bag. His novels are long, dribbling anecdotes without apparent purpose, but they are well worth reading if you are of a mind to imbibe such a potent draught of . . . madness.
And yet I will imbibe for a fourth time, having recently ordered Fowlers End.
My third Kersh novel, and they are all of a piece. The man can write-humorously, evocatively-but he couldn't or wouldn't plot his way out of a paper bag. His novels are long, dribbling anecdotes without apparent purpose, but they are well worth reading if you are of a mind to imbibe such a potent draught of . . . madness.
And yet I will imbibe for a fourth time, having recently ordered Fowlers End.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews