A collection of short stories by the author of "A Disaffection", which won the 1989 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. All the stories feature characters who are wound up as tightly as a drum, full of anxiety, thwarted compassion and frustrated desire.
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Book Description
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About the Author
James Kelman was born in Glasgow in 1946. After leaving school at 15 he worked in the printing industry and as a bus driver. In 1971 he attended creative writing night classes and in 1973 an American company published his first collection of short stories, An Old Pub Near The Angel. Greyhound for Breakfast won the 1987 Cheltenham Prize; A Disaffection won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; How late it was, how late won the 1994 Booker Prize amidst a storm of controversy. He has also written many plays for stage and radio. He lives in Glasgow with his wife and family.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hard nosed stories from Scotland,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Burn (Paperback)
James Kelman is best known for the controversial Booker Prize winning novel "How late it was, how late". However, he has also written some excellent short fiction, as this collection proves. And short is the operative word - there are 26 stories in less than 250 pages, many as short as two pages. Mostly they concern people living quietly desperate lives - people who just seem to find living in the world more difficult than they should, or at least than others apparently do. Some of the stories, such as "Pictures" and "Lassies are trained that way" focus on the impossibility of communication between the sexes, but from an unusual angle - that of the self conscious working class man, who is painfully aware of how all his words are being misinterpreted, but cannot find an alternative approach. "A Walk in the Park" is one of the few stories where love transcends despair to provide some measure of redemption, but my personal favourite has to be "Naval History", a hilarious tale of a setup in a bookstore
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