Hangover Square

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Hangover Square is a 1941 novel by English playwright and novelist Patrick Hamilton (1904–1962). It is set in Earls Court, London in 1939.

The main character is George Harvey Bone, a lonely borderline alcoholic who suffers from a split personality. He is obsessed with gaining the affections of Netta, a failed actress and one of George's circle of "friends" with whom he drinks. George suffers from 'dead moods' in which he is convinced he must kill Netta. Upon recovering from these interludes, he cannot remember them. The novel captures the mood of prewar London, and is considered by a number of literary experts Hamilton's most perfected work—exemplifying the author's concerns over social inequalities, the rise of Fascism and the hovering doom of World War II.