Love, Leda

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It’s an endearing jumble of a book mixed in with sexual encounters previously avoided in contemporary literature, and characters that may never have been found in a heteronormative canon. Love, Leda’ follows our misanthropic eponymous lead skirt the streets of Soho, borrowing money off friends, random hookups and traipsing around London with no purpose or goal.

He also recounts his obsessive unrequited 'love' for a married straight (and religious) man, whose only interest in the titular pseudonymous Leda is to convert him to Christianity. Daniel haunts Leda everywhere he goes, like the spectral threat of harm that followed men like Hyatt everywhere. Further satisfaction is found in the passages of dialogue – urbane rallies of quick wit, indicating Hyatt had unfulfilled designs on the theatre – and Love, Leda’s portrayal of a stratum of 1960s London that both stands apart from the picture-postcard Carnaby Street image and, in a way, helped bring that into existence. I hope you don’t mind, but thinking as we’re in the same age group, I thought we could have a little talk in addition to wasting time. Near the beginning of the book, Leda seemed to me an arrogant little sod who I struggled to understand.

Support our vendors this winter and beyond If you can't visit your local vendor on a regular basis, then the next best way to support them is with a subscription to the Big Issue. 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. Could have done without the extended seaside scene at the end, but overall entertaining to read, and I’m glad I did. Moreover, it's fascinating following him as he navigates the back streets of Soho putting flowers in his hair and dabbing perfume behind his ears while dipping into the lives of outcast artists, dissidents and bored housewives.

Hyatt’s pacing throughout the novel can often be abrupt and somewhat jarring; however, this was a common feature for writing during this era, but the prose within this novel often becomes almost lyrical and poetic in places countering this abruptness. To me, people spend their whole lives walking around in circles, and when they stop, they talk of the things they would have done had they not done the thing they have done all their lives.

Sir William Boggs of Scotland Yard, investigating, finds nothing to suspect murder and believes that Peter Wood committed suicide of his own free will. I haven’t written to him for some time now and I feel he needs the tranquillity of love in a letter. However this book comes from such a unique perspective and is beautifully written and has fortunately been rediscovered. First of all, I think the significance of this book as a piece of unarchived queer fiction can't be underplayed.

Some of the passages grappling with depression and Leda’s chaotic lifestyle are worth framing in a museum, whereas some passages of narrative are well worth forgetting.

I have a bath and put on clean clothes, dance around the flat, taking care not to upset or break anything. His sexuality, too, is less than linear: occasional, functional liaisons with women likely having a touch of autobiography, if Hyatt’s own life is an indicator.

The novel is short, a mere 40,000 words, but is packed with little episodes that neither the reader nor the protagonist quite knows how to react to, interspersed with Leda’s ongoing reflections on his life.He began writing poetry in the 60s, but only published a handful in obscure magazines, despite being deeply involved with the literary scene and even dating the publisher, Antony Blond. In his pursuit of the bohemian, Leda leads a nocturnal life of smoky bars, jazz clubs, and the odd dalliance with a woman.