The Rabbit

by Ted Lewis

Novel about art student Victor and his fateful return home for a working summer vacation during the 1950s.

222 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Ted Lewis (1940 – 1982) was a British writer born in Manchester, an only child. After World War II the family moved to Barton-upon-Humber in 1947. He had a strict upbringing and his parents did not want their son to go to art school, but Ted's English teacher Henry Treece, recognising his creative talents in writing and art, persuaded them not to stand in his way.

Lewis attended Hull Art School for four years. His first work was in London, in advertising, and then as an animation specialist in television and films (among them the Beatles' Yellow Submarine). His first novel, All the Way Home and All the Night Through was published in 1965, followed by Jack's Return Home, subsequently retitled Get Carter after the success of the film of the same name starring Michael Caine, which created the noir school of British crime writing and pushed Lewis into the best-seller list. After the collapse of his marriage Lewis returned to his home town in the 1970s.

Ted Lewis died in 1982 having published seven more novels and written several episodes for the television series Z-Cars.

Reviews

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is that rare beast, a Ted Lewis novel without a criminal in it.

Though there is another similar novel, which was in fact his first, All the Way Home and All the Night Through, published in 1965 which was to a degree autobiographical, and concerned young men and their tribulations in Humberside, where Lewis himself lived until he was 7.
This is set in the 1950s and again I suspect is autobiographical, and set on Humberside, but is physically and psychologically much darker.

That it is more difficult to ascertain it’s degree of overlap in Lewis’s own life, is no surprise. It’s not glamorous to look back on. There’s nothing to be proud of in doing so. This was a society of chauvinistic, bullying, hard-drinking men, some of whom were frustrated homosexuals, whose behaviour would these days be seen as unacceptable.

Specifically, it concerns Victor, an art student, who returns home to Hull for summer work at a quarry. Uneasy with his student-tag he sees a need to prove himself, and spends the summer drinking heavily, insulting many, and fighting often.

This may well not be one of Lewis’s more memorable novels, but it is interesting and important.
He is of course known, for his crime which followed in the 1970s, specifically Jack's Return Home which was filmed as Get Carter, but also Plender GBHand Billy Rags.

Lewis died young at 42, of alcoholism, and will be remembered as a forerunner in British noir, prepared to explore the darker places in the souls of men. The words of Raymond Chandler summarise him well..

The crime story tips violence out of its vase on the shelf, and pours it back down into the street where it belongs.

[Robin Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

This highly autobiographical novel, set in 1957, sees Ted Lewis turn away from the gritty, violent crime novels he is best known for. Reading it in 2025 it immediately has the ability to shock one's sensibilities as modern day attitudes would find fault with a way of life which was commonplace in the late 1950s.
All the characters are clearly drawn from real life and every location existed and were places the author knew well. Elsham Chalk Quarry where much of the action takes place, including one of the book's most violently repulsive scenes was run by the author's father. Although Ted Lewis has reinvented himself as Victor he is still the gaffer's son and still trying to pursue a career as an artist despite ridicule from many of his associates.
I have great empathy for all the characters and think this novel is hugely important in recording a tiny section of social history. This is Ted Lewis being frank about his own past.