characterisation.
Immediately seeking more. I bought 1982 Janine and was hooked. In Gray’s finest incarnation, Jock McLeish, I found an uncannily recognisable character, drifting through a soulless job, devoured by insecurity. resentment and suicidal despair. The way the character slowly bears his soul, while desperately trying to avoid the truths about himself through a stream of memories, voices and elaborate sado- masochistic fantasies about imaginary women, his parents. childhood, colleagues. former lovers and God, left me spellbound.
Typographically, Janine astounded me. In chapter II, as McLeish slides into mental breakdown, the voices raving in his head are brilliantly expressed by three streams of typeface, expanding. contracting and colliding as the voices get louder or softer. ending with four blank pages where the character himself blacks out. I also loved the aftertouch of featuring mainly critical reviews of the book on its back pages. a sublimer delivered two fingers to the critics. I became utterly obsessed with the book. reading it more than a dozen times in succession, convinced I would never read something so perfect again. Such was my obsession, I adapted the image on the cover to look like myself and sent it to friends as Christmas cards that year.
With Janine I felt I had discovered some brilliant new ‘thing’ that was all my own, unaware Gray had been a prolific painter and writer since the mid-I950s. I read, re-read and was confounded by his epic Lanark and I devoured the beautifully illustrated, Unlikely Stories Mostly. Luckily, for someone with a. by now, insatiable appetite for Gray‘s work, his
RED HOT READING
READING GRAY'S WORK IS BOTH CHALLENGING AND PERVERSELY REASSURING
output was as prolific as it was diverse. Every year he seemed to produce something radical and superlative. be it in the form of novels. plays. poetry. short stories. song compilations. political pamphlets. his magnificent murals and wildly ambitious Book ofPrefaces. Even after a minor heart attack in 2003. Gray was soon back working on a ceiling mural in a former church in Kelvinside.
Reading Gray‘s work is both challenging and perverser reassuring. He grows within the pages of his books. giving an organic picture of life in Scotland not just over decades. but through the eyes of someone ageing as these decades pass. Sexual repression. Calvinist guilt and the oft neglected strong matriarchal aspects of Scottish culture breathe and sweat on his pages. Gray‘s love of words and ideas is truly infectious and his affection and bewilderment at life painful. poignant and inspiringly subversive. I particularly find Gray's tangible vulnerability with regards the women in his books unique and beguiling. Even in fiction written by women themselves. I have seldom encountered female characters celebrated. adored. despaired/ obsessed over and ultimately in charge of the books they inhabit as I have in Gray‘s work.
Last year saw the publication of The [incl of
Our Tethers. Gray’s first fiction in seven years. It was a joy to be reacquainted with his pitch perfect. surreally real dialogue. bravura experimentation. dry. quirky wit. suppressed menace and fractured intimacy as he reconsidered the banality and incomprehension of existence and communication. It made me feel strangely better about facing a new century. minus the people I lost in the previous one.
Last month. I was lucky enough to interview Gray. via his biographer Rodge Glass. through a series of emails. With the encouragement of Rodge and an extremely amenable Gray on that particular afternoon. he also agreed to answer a selection of my own questions. things I‘d always wanted to ask but had been too shy at book festivals and events over the years. As the emails were exchanged. details from Rodge. like him telling me Alasdair was in the next room singing. added wonderful detail to what was an extremely precious day for me.
It is selfishly comforting to know that Gray shows no sings of slowing down. Aside from dictating extracts of his biography to Glass. he is currently working on the Oran Mor Mural scheme of decoration for the auditorium of a Glasgow Arts and Leisure Centre. A Life in Pictures. at semi-autobiography to be published by Canongate in 2006. and Three Men in Love: A Historical Triptych About Money at P/ay'to be published by Bloomsbury in 2007. Truly inspirational.
How We Should Rule Ourselves is out now published by Canongate. See www.laurahird.com for literature, competitions and film reviews.
Faced with a mountain of
tomes, just where do you start for your Summer Books fun? Brian Donaldson chooses the ones to
pack with your beach ball.
R EEKSI K‘C A R Ar
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BEST NOVEL COMING IN AT EXACTLY THE IOOO-PAGE MARK Newfoundland Rebbecca Ray
In 1999, teenager Rebbecca
Ray wrote her ironically titled first novel, A Certain Age. Six long years later and her sabbatical is over with this bumper doorstopper. Ynys- morlan is a dying tourist resort in Wales , but when a rich American floods £33m into its coffers, things start to look up. And then down again.
Thu 9 Jun, published by Hamish Hamilton.
BEST SCOTTISH CRIME NOVEL NOT WRITTEN BY IAN RANKIN
Shadow of Sound:
Alex Gray
The brutal murder of the Glasgow Orchestra leader kicks off this third novel from former folk singer and teacher Alex Gray. DCI Lorimer and psychologist Solomon Brightman discover that the dead guy had been conducting a series of tangled relationships with orchestra members. So, did he have it coming?
Thu 9 Jun, published by Allison & Busby.
BEST FILM BIOGRAPHY BY A LIST WRITER
Splke Lee: That's
My Story and I'm Stlcklnq To It
Kaleem Attab
From racial tension in Do the Right Thing to basketball tactics in He Got Game. Spike Lee has become one of America's most important and highly controversial cinematic voices. Kaleem Aftab chronicles the work of the man who can‘t drive but gave Halle Berry her first break.
Thu 76 Jun, published by Faber.
SPIKE LEE
THAT‘S HY STORY AND FM STICKIHB TUIT
AS TOLD TO IALEII AFTAI
BEST COLLECTION OF POETRY FROM AN ORCADIAN
LEG EN D
The Collected Poems by George Mackay Brown, Archie Bevan & Brian Murray (eds)
He's been dead for nine years. but the Stromness-born poet and novelist remains influential for those writing in or about the Orkneys. Brown's verse is collected for the first time and if it's good enough for Seamus Heaney, it's good enough for you.
Mon 20 Jun, published by John Murray
BEST 705 NOSTALGIA TRIP Not Abba: The Real Story of the Seventies Dave Haslam
You may recall the decade that taste forgot for glitter. John Travolta and flares. Dave Haslam doesn't. To the man who has written about Madchester and superstar DJs. it was a time of power cuts. skinheads and Deep Throat.
BEST FOURTH BOOK IN A OUINTET
A Sultan In Palermo Tarlq All
The setting for Tariq Ali‘s latest entry into his Islam Quintet saga is medieval Sicily, where Arab learning and culture are thriving. We meet Muhammad al-ldrisi, who is the cartographer and friend to the sultan, but who now is made to choose between his people and his leader as strife rises in Palermo.
Mon 4 Jul, published by Verso.
S) 2%.;.:"211T‘:7 THE LIST 23