Sam Leith Sam Leith

Love among the ruins

For a small circle of distinguished writers, the Blitz seemed to act as a powerful aphrodisiac, says Sam Leith

issue 19 January 2013

The phrase that gives this book its title is Graham Greene’s:

The nightly routine of sirens, barrage, the probing raider, the unmistakable engine (‘Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?’), the bomb-bursts moving nearer and then moving away, hold one like a love-charm.

Greene was apparently proud of ‘love-charm’: he used it more than once.

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