{"id":5271,"date":"2023-06-17T10:44:35","date_gmt":"2023-06-17T10:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/?p=5271"},"modified":"2023-06-28T10:45:41","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T10:45:41","slug":"andy-hamilton-longhand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/2023\/06\/17\/andy-hamilton-longhand\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Hamilton: Longhand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Andy Hamilton is a well-kent name from British TV and radio, having given us, among other things, shows like <em>Drop the Dead Donkey<\/em> (1990-1998) and <em>Outnumbered<\/em> (2007-2016). <em>Longhand<\/em> (2020) is his second novel and, unusually, it\u2019s actually written in longhand, with almost 350 pages of Hamilton\u2019s readable script, complete with additions and scrubbings out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s a long love letter from Malcolm George Galbraith, a large, cumbersome Scotsman, to Bessie, his partner of twenty years. For reasons that he intends to explain, Malcolm has to leave Bessie with considerable urgency and, in fact, as the novel begins, has already left and, as an opening letter to the publisher from Bessie\u2019s solicitors makes clear about his \u201cunverifiable account\u201d, without a trace and to much concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It would be a spoiler to reveal much about Malcolm\u2019s story, especially as the first narrative curveball hits us six pages in, but it\u2019s safe to say that it would be hard to put an age on Malcolm because \u201cso many of those early civilizations kept messing around with their calendars\u201d.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Malcolm writing the letter is \u201csomeone who never changes\u2026a constant in a changing, turbulent world\u201d, but the life (indeed, the many lives) he writes about give us a more fantastical account of the world, pulling in mythological and historical touchpoints. But, really, it\u2019s a state-of-the-nation novel reflecting on our current times, covering subjects like Brexit, the NHS, mental health, ghettoised opinion, and rampant consumerism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In spite of contemporary concerns, the book ripples with comedic moments, (\u201cNearly always, the most rational response is a comic one.), whether that be the collision of the mundane with the fantastic or the set pieces recollected by Malcolm.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Longhand<\/em> is one of those books where you can say all human life is here. Love, loss, vengeance, comedy, tragedy, and more. It acknowledges along the way, rational minds collectively \u201csurrender entirely to the thrill of their emotions\u201d but, over the larger course of time, standards overall improve, perhaps with one one exception: our handwriting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andy Hamilton is a well-kent name from British TV and radio, having given us, among other things, shows like Drop the Dead Donkey (1990-1998) and Outnumbered (2007-2016). Longhand (2020) is his second novel and, unusually, it\u2019s actually written in longhand, with almost 350 pages of Hamilton\u2019s readable script, complete with additions and scrubbings out. It\u2019s <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/2023\/06\/17\/andy-hamilton-longhand\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[294],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-andy-hamilton"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/ImageHandler.ashx-2.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pon-1n1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5272,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5271\/revisions\/5272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booklit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}