In this book we learn all about being a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. It involves a surprising amount of day-drinking. The author, Julian McLaren-Ross, was apparently a true bohemian, and had much experience as a door-to-door salesman, and also of day drinking. This book captures a certain seedy life in the early twentieth century very well, all petty debts, horrible rooming houses, and trying to avoid buying your round. It is structured around a love affair the salesman has with a colleague’s wife. He is not that into it, at first, and then gets super, super, into it. Then she goes off him. It’s sad, as love affairs that peter out always are, not helped by all the debt. It has a kind of uplifting side though, in that she encourages him to write, and to think about politics, and to generally better himself. People roll their eyes about crushes, but I think they can sometimes be powerful engines for growth. People are always joining the drama club to meet girls, or joining the gym so boys will look at them, and etc. At least it keeps us going forward, even if it all blows up in the end.
OF LOVE AND HUNGER by Julian MacLaren-Ross
