Blood [Hardcover]

Janice Galloway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 12, 1991

BLOOD is a virtuoso work: the writing sinewy and beautiful. . . the integrity of vision coruscating; the whole driven by the author's restless experimentation with form. And at least two stories, 'Blood' itself and 'Fearless', will certainly end up in anthologies: not Best Scottish Writers, or Best Women Writers, but quite simply, Best' New Statesman and Society.'I remember reading a story by Janice Galloway for the first time; its urgency of voice, that certainty of expression, I wondered why I hadn't heard of her before; then discovered that she was altogether new to writing. It was some debut. She really is a fine writer' James Kelman'Blood is a virtuoso work: the writing sinewy and beautiful...the integrity of vision coruscating; the whole driven by the author's restless experimentation with form. And at least two stories, 'Blood' itself and 'Fearless', will certainly end up in anthologies: not Best Scottish Writers, or Best Women Writers, but, quite simply, best' New Statesman'A salutary collection...A marvellous revelation. A writer of passion and virtuosity shines through' Scotland on Sunday'Genuinely unnerving...she is a fierce, troubling new writer' Observer'Galloway flecks her hard-edged realism with impressionist grace-notes, a potent mixture that confirms her...as one of Scotland's best young writers' Sunday Telegraph'There is ample proof in Blood of Galloway's unassailable talent. Marvellously funny and beautifully paced' Glasgow Herald

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The brilliant, vividly drawn images in this marvelous collection will deliver a satisfying shock of recognition to American readers, and no doubt ensure acclaim for this young Scottish writer. A character's waist-length hair is cut for the first time in "Into the Roots" and we see that "a long neck, very white from lack of sun, had grown up in the dark like a silent mushroom." In the title story, a tooth is pulled, "the gum parting with a sound like uprooting potatoes." Still other stories evoke darkly stained, often disturbing, images of human nature: A young woman remembers cowering behind her mother's skirts at the spectre of Fearless, the eponymous bogeyman, who would "clink and drag" up the street "like Marley's ghost." In "later he would open his eyes," an elderly couple's suicide pact has the old man imagining their car as it plunges off an embankment "ticking over like a child's cough. Ticking over and lurching as though it might stall." If it is the job of the serious writer to recreate experience and give it new life on the page, then Galloway ( The Trick Is to Keep on Breathing ) should be gainfully employed for many years to come.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A story collection from Scottish writer Galloway--reflecting a typically bleak late-20th-century British landscape and informing ethos--makes its American debut. Galloway writes about a sunless world of grimy streets, drunken men, and brutalized women. Many of the pieces are little more than brief sketches of a mood, place, or character; others resemble scenes from a play. All are relentlessly downbeat, even macabre. In the title story, a callous dentist dismisses a young patient after an extraction, ``with an unstoppable redness seeping through the fingers of her open mouth.'' In ``Breaking Through,'' a beloved cat is allowed to burn to death while a little girl watches; and in ``Two Fragments,'' two equally nasty explanations are given to a child for her grandmother's glass eye. Three notable pieces are: ``Later He Would Open His Eyes in a Strange Place, Wondering Where She,'' in which an elderly couple read the biography of Arthur Koestler, then decide to imitate him by committing suicide together; ``Plastering the Cracks,'' where a young woman engages some workmen but, later, eavesdropping through the wall, becomes fearful of their intentions; and ``A Week with Uncle Felix,'' in which Stenga, a withdrawn young girl unable to ask questions about her long-dead father (``You couldn't ask what he was like: that was the kind of question you never got much of an answer for. Or it got turned into something else: drunk and violent'') is abused by an elderly uncle. Powerful images and ideas in stories often too elliptical and fragmentary to engage fully. An interesting but uneven debut. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 178 pages
• Publisher: Random House (November 12, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679405941
• ISBN-13: 978-0679405948
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,511,294 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Janice Galloway is one of the UKs most distinctive and versatile authors. Her first novel (The Trick is to keep Breathing, now widely regarded as a Scottish contemporary classic) was shortlisted for three major prizes and won the MIND/Allan Lane Book of the Year. Her second novel, Foreign Parts, won both the McVitie's Prize and the American Academy of Arts and Letters EM Forster Award, while her third, Clara, won the Saltire in 2002. Collaborative texts include libretti, art installation texts, and four extended works with Anne Bevan, the Orcadian sculptor. Her latest book, This is not about Me, won the SAC non- fiction Book of the Year Award 2009. She has one husband and one son and lives in Lanarkshire, Scotland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Virtuoso work, January 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Blood (Hardcover)

This book of short stories has no one theme, but gets it shape and unification from Galloway's strong, highly individual voice and the eerie atmosphere of fear and tenderness it manages to convey. From the very short (The Meat) to the longer pieces (A week with Uncle Felix) this collection rattles with desperate life, vivdness and a visceral edge all its own. I defy anyone to read BLOOD (the title story) without feeling the sensation of a former tooth extraction, though what she does with the story goes much further, turning an everyday, unremarkable mutilation into a parable threaded with loss, yearning and isolation from the the herione's dearest source of comfort, music. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to read more in the contemporary Scots voice or who enjoys virtuoso writing for its own sake. Galloway is a rare, brave writer.

4.0 out of 5 stars The strange bits I have found in blood, January 24, 2004

By 

Barbara Fletcher "placesforwriters.com" (Toronto) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood (Paperback)

The inside of Janice Galloway's head scares me. Blood is a bizarre but mesmerizing collection of strange short stories, unsettling almost-plays, and uncomfortable snapshots of human nature. Her words walk that sharp line between brilliance and madness, and you are never quite sure what side you have landed until it's much too late. These stories are clever and brutal. Twisted things happen to a menagerie of misfits. Simple, everyday events are carefully braided together into something with which you will end up flagellating themself after a few pages. And there are never more than a few pages; you don't know if you really want there to be more pages. But, really, you do.