-
Indelible Ink: Ali Smith’s ‘The Accidental’
Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start). Every story has a beginning, middle and an end. Ali Smith’s 2004 novel ‘The Accidental’ takes this truth and plays with it in a manner that is inventive, witty and incredibly assured. Smith had been winning awards and a growing readership since her […]
Alistair Braidwood
May 2, 2011
-
Indelible Ink: Kevin MacNeil’s ‘The Stornoway Way’
There can be little argument that contemporary Scottish fiction is Central Belt centric. Most of the tales told come from, and are normally set in, the area dissected and connected by the M8. However that situation is slowly changing and a writer who shows the way, and who has come to be one of my […]
Alistair Braidwood
April 4, 2011
-
Indelible Ink: Duncan McLean’s ‘Bunker Man’
There is a quote on the cover of my paperback of Duncan McLean’s ‘Bunker Man’ from Cosmopolitan Magazine that claims ‘Duncan McLean is Scotland’s answer to Roddy Doyle’. If a fan of Doyle were to pick up ‘Bunker Man’ on this recommendation they would be in for a shock, particularly if their knowledge of Doyle […]
Alistair Braidwood
March 7, 2011
-
Indelible Ink: Special Edition ‘Stuart Adamson: In A Big Country’
It’s perhaps difficult to sufficiently express just how popular Big Country were for a few years in the mid-1980s. Albums went straight to number 1, there were regular Top of the Pops appearances, they were lauded in music publications from pop paper Smash Hits to the weekly NME and Melody Maker and were also well-liked and respected by many […]
Alistair Braidwood
February 18, 2011
-
Indelible Ink: Ron Butlin’s ‘The Sound of My Voice’
Ron Butlin seems to be one of Scottish writing’s best kept secrets and I don’t quite know why. Scotland is lucky to have the writers we do, and Butlin can show his medals with the best of them. He is perhaps best known as a poet, he is Edinburgh’s Makar after all, but even in […]
Alistair Braidwood
February 7, 2011
-
Indelible Ink : Suhayl Saadi’s ‘Psychoraag’
When books are at their best they teach us not only about the lives of others but something about ourselves. That’s why it is important to any culture that it has as diverse a selection of voices and writers as possible. White males, Scottish or otherwise, have been overrepresented historically and artistically, and anyone who […]
Alistair Braidwood
January 3, 2011
-
Indelible Ink : James Kelman’s ‘Kieron Smith, boy’
There are few more divisive figures in Scottish writing than James Kelman. He is the Marmite of modern novelists. You either regard him as a visionary and a culturally relevant writer whose use of working class Scots dialect make him a representative for those who rarely appear in novels except when fulfilling a stereotype for […]
Alistair Braidwood
December 6, 2010
-
Indelible Ink : James Robertson’s ‘The Fanatic’
There is a book which has arguably influenced modern Scottish literature more than any other, and it’s not the one you’re thinking of. James Hogg’s 1824 ‘The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner’ has come to be many writers’ favourite Scottish novel, but few wear their hearts on the page like James Robertson.
Alistair Braidwood
November 1, 2010
-
Indelible Ink : Alasdair Gray’s ‘Lanark’
How do I begin to sum up Alasdair Gray? Writer of fiction and non-fiction, painter, illustrator, dramatist, poet, cultural and political commentator, and even, as part of the ‘Ballad of the Books’ project, songwriter. Most people would be happy to have mastered one of these things. Alasdair Gray is not most people. And ‘Lanark’ is […]
Alistair Braidwood
October 4, 2010