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’s actually written in longhand, with almost 350 pages of Hamilton’s readable script, complete with additions and scrubbings out.

It’s 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’s solicitors makes clear about his “unverifiable account”, without a trace and to much concern.

It would be a spoiler to reveal much about Malcolm’s story, especially as the first narrative curveball hits us six pages in, but it’s safe to say that it would be hard to put an age on Malcolm because “so many of those early civilizations kept messing around with their calendars”. 

The Malcolm writing the letter is “someone who never changes…a constant in a changing, turbulent world”, 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’s a state-of-the-nation novel reflecting on our current times, covering subjects like Brexit, the NHS, mental health, ghettoised opinion, and rampant consumerism.

In spite of contemporary concerns, the book ripples with comedic moments, (“Nearly 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. 

Longhand 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 “surrender entirely to the thrill of their emotions” but, over the larger course of time, standards overall improve, perhaps with one one exception: our handwriting.