Greyhound For Breakfast

by James Kelman

Overview

A brilliant collection of stories set in the tenements and cheap casinos of Glasgow, Manchester and London.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781846970542
Publisher:	Birlinn, Limited
Publication date:	07/01/2008
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 2.60(d)

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.

Editorial Reviews

By the time most readers have finished this volume they will never want to hear about another person bumming a cigarette, placing a bet or drinking a beer. They will feel nearly as suffocated as Mr. Kelman's characters do. -- New York Times

Michiko Kakutani

Writing in tough, sometimes grim language, Glasgow native Kelman (A Chancer, The Busconductor Hines) conveys the streets, pubs and tenements of Glasgow, Manchester and London. This collection of 47 stories is an uneven assortment; to read them together is like finding a precious stone under one rock and an unsavory object under the next. A unifying voice throughout the stories lulls with a gentle lilting wit, but that same voice can turn into a nasty snarl. And even at its mildest, there is hardly a page in the book without several obscene words. Some of the stories are only a paragraph long, while others are rambling monologues of several pages. Perhaps the best writing lies in the affecting third-person narratives in which Kelman deftly evokes a mood, a place, a character or a situation without relying on the gimmicks of some of the more experimental pieces. Powerful to the end, this novel is distinctly kin to Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn in its raw and disturbing evocation of working-class existence. (February)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly