Blood

by Janice Galloway

Overview

'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

Customer Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781446467862
Publisher:	Random House Adult Trade Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/30/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	230 KB

About the Author

Janice Galloway's first novel, The Trick is to Keep Breathing, now widely regarded as a Scottish contemporary classic, was published in 1990 and won the MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year. Her second novel, Foreign Parts, won the American Academy of Arts and Letters E. M. Forster Award while her third, Clara, about the tempestuous life of nineteenth-century pianist Clara Wieck Schumann, won the Saltire Award in 2002. Collaborative texts include an opera with Sally Beamish and three cross-discipline works with Anne Bevan, the Orcadian sculptor. Her 'anti-memoir', This Is Not About Me, was published by Granta in September 2008 to universal critical acclaim. She lives in Lanarkshire.

Editorial Reviews

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. (Nov.)

EBOOK COMMENTARY

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. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly