From Scenes Like These by Gordon M. Williams (introduction by James Robertson)
SHORTLISTED FOR THE FIRST EVER BOOKER PRIZE'A MASTERPIECE. . .
DEMANDS TO BE READ' - DOUGLAS STUART, AUTHOR OF SHUGGIE BAIN'AN EXTRAORDINARY NOVEL' - MICHAEL MAGEE, AUTHOR OF CLOSE TO HOMEIt’s the west of Scotland in the 1950s. New houses are going up. Factories are opening.
But Dunky Logan, a 15-year-old brought up in a tenement flat in working-class Kilcaddie, is ditching school to be a labourer on a local farm. Dead set on becoming a hard case, he wants to work shoulder to shoulder with so-called real men. Irish Catholic Mary O’Donnell arrives at the farmhouse as the new maid.
She is pregnant - no boyfriend in sight. But she’s smart, and she has a plan to get herself up in the world. As Dunky is swallowed up by a vicious cycle of violence, betrayal, and booze, Mary becomes entangled in a savage family feud.
Now there’s no going back, not for either of them. 'One of the finest British novels of its era. A landmark in postwar fiction.
New edition publishing 29/5/25
SHORTLISTED FOR THE FIRST EVER BOOKER PRIZE'A MASTERPIECE. . .
DEMANDS TO BE READ' - DOUGLAS STUART, AUTHOR OF SHUGGIE BAIN'AN EXTRAORDINARY NOVEL' - MICHAEL MAGEE, AUTHOR OF CLOSE TO HOMEIt’s the west of Scotland in the 1950s. New houses are going up. Factories are opening.
But Dunky Logan, a 15-year-old brought up in a tenement flat in working-class Kilcaddie, is ditching school to be a labourer on a local farm. Dead set on becoming a hard case, he wants to work shoulder to shoulder with so-called real men. Irish Catholic Mary O’Donnell arrives at the farmhouse as the new maid.
She is pregnant - no boyfriend in sight. But she’s smart, and she has a plan to get herself up in the world. As Dunky is swallowed up by a vicious cycle of violence, betrayal, and booze, Mary becomes entangled in a savage family feud.
Now there’s no going back, not for either of them. 'One of the finest British novels of its era. A landmark in postwar fiction.
New edition publishing 29/5/25
SHORTLISTED FOR THE FIRST EVER BOOKER PRIZE'A MASTERPIECE. . .
DEMANDS TO BE READ' - DOUGLAS STUART, AUTHOR OF SHUGGIE BAIN'AN EXTRAORDINARY NOVEL' - MICHAEL MAGEE, AUTHOR OF CLOSE TO HOMEIt’s the west of Scotland in the 1950s. New houses are going up. Factories are opening.
But Dunky Logan, a 15-year-old brought up in a tenement flat in working-class Kilcaddie, is ditching school to be a labourer on a local farm. Dead set on becoming a hard case, he wants to work shoulder to shoulder with so-called real men. Irish Catholic Mary O’Donnell arrives at the farmhouse as the new maid.
She is pregnant - no boyfriend in sight. But she’s smart, and she has a plan to get herself up in the world. As Dunky is swallowed up by a vicious cycle of violence, betrayal, and booze, Mary becomes entangled in a savage family feud.
Now there’s no going back, not for either of them. 'One of the finest British novels of its era. A landmark in postwar fiction.
New edition publishing 29/5/25