The Heart in Exile


The Heart in Exile is a 1953 British novel by Hungarian writer Adam de Hegedus under the pseudonym Rodney Garland. It chronicles homosexual life in London during World War II and post-war, via a psychiatrist's investigation into his former lover's death.

Plot

Oxford-educated psychiatrist Dr. Anthony "Tony" Page's grieving new patient, Ann Hewitt, recounts the recent death of her barrister fiancé, Julian Leclerc, by an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. She suspects that there is more to the story, and Tony finds himself pursuing an investigation of Julian, who was his lover years before.

Publication

The Heart in Exile was written by Hungarian writer Adam de Hegedus, but published by W. H. Allen & Co. in 1953 under the pseudonym of Rodney Garland because of its controversial themes. It was a "shock success" and ran into several British and American editions. Most recently, it was reprinted by Valancourt Books in 2014, with a new introduction by Neil Bartlett. It has been called the first gay detective novel, and the first work of fiction to tackle the theme of male homosexuality in 1950s Britain.

Analysis

Contemporaneous reviews of the novel reflect the mainstream attitudes about homosexuality in the early 1950s. In 1954, Frank G. Slaughter of The New York Times wrote,

Reception

John Betjeman of The Daily Telegraph praised the novel as "a completely honest story of homosexual life in London... It makes no attempt to defend or condemn. A well-written work." Slaughter called the novel a "sensitive and deeply perceptive story of the homosexual and his underworld", and wrote:
Marghanita Laski of The Observer called it "a sad, serious first novel", and wrote, "Its documentation is more important than its plot, and its detached picture of barren tragic love and desire in a furtive fantastic 'underground' sector of London can arouse no disgust but only a deep pity coupled with a new understanding." Explaining that Tony's investigation takes him through the "underground" homosexual community in London, Kirkus Reviews wrote that "the subtle differentiations, evasions, and often humiliations of this half-world and the special habitat it frequents is viewed with detachment but without distaste". In 2015, Christopher Fowler of The Independent described the novel as "subtly delineated, sombre, and grittily realistic". Noting that homosexual acts were still a crime in Britain in the 1950s, he wrote that some contemporaneous reviews of the novel were "unwittingly condescending". In 2022, Eric Brown of Neglected Books called the novel "searingly honest and heartbreaking".